In freezing cold weather Evening Extra joins the volunteers from Simon on their nightly soup run for the homeless in Dublin.
Each evening in the Simon Community shelter volunteers gather to prepare sandwiches and soup to distribute to the homeless.
Most of the people they visit are housed on a temporary basis in rooms or flats or some kind of shelter. But Simon also checks out shop doorways, lane ways, and anywhere else where people sleep rough.
The volunteers keep a log of who they visit and their location. Every night the volunteers must try to find these people, who live very much in isolation from the rest of the world.
On this night there are just three cars trying to cover the entire city of Dublin. One volunteer who has been involved in Simon for six years says that since he joined
Each year it's progressively got worse and Simon's resources are being stretched to the limit.
The volunteers take it upon themselves to seek out those living in Dublin's underworld to make sure they are warm enough and have food to eat.
This episode of 'Evening Extra' was broadcast on 15 January 1987. The reporter is Richard Crowley.
