9,000 parcels delivered by Foyle Foodbank as Derry faces ‘income’ crisis
Derry is experiencing an ‘income crisis rather than a hunger crisis’ after the Foyle Foodbank handed out over 9,000 food parcels last year.
That’s according to Karen Mullan, Strategic Development Manager at the Foyle Network Foundation (FNF), who told the ‘Journal’ the local charity witnessed a six per cent increase in the number of food packages distributed to adults and children in Derry last year.
The total number of parcels rose by 529 from 8,508 in 2023 to 9,037 in 2024.
In the run up to Christmas alone the Derry charity distributed 2,364 hampers.
“This is an income problem. It's not a hunger problem. It's about people not having enough income to be able to meet the household essentials – their rent, their mortgages, their food, their day-to-day running costs,” she says.
Ms. Mullan has been working in the sector for many years. The ‘Journal’ asked if twenty years ago she could have foreseen foodbanks developing into the essential amenity they have become for so many.
“No, never. In our town? Absolutely not. But you just see the generosity of people. I've been working in this field for years and years and I don't remember it being as bad as this.
"There have always been people struggling but I look at some people coming into us. If you look at their wages against their rent. They have a car to run. You are thinking – how are they surviving?”
People are struggling, she says, through a perfect storm of low incomes and high inflation.
"Rents have doubled. You are not getting anything really under £800-£900 whereas you were getting a three-bedroom house in Creggan and the Bog for £450-£500. You are not getting it now for £900.
"The wages haven't gone up to reflect any of that. You are lucky enough if you work for an employer that gives you an increase of any kind because in the main there aren’t any.”
Ms. Mullan believes not enough is being done at regional government level to tackle poverty.
“There are still too many people out there who need our support. If you look at the Executive it's been up a year but there has been no movement on the anti-poverty strategy.
"You are not seeing the minister coming out with what he is going to do or any funding around it. It's really worrying in that sense that there is a lack of support there for people who are really struggling.”
According to the Foyle Foodbank report for 2024 of 9,037 food parcels handed out last year in Derry 4,971 were distributed to adults and 4,066 were delivered to children.
Of the 2,364 Christmas hampers 1,266 were given to adults and 1,098 to children.
Ms. Mullan notes the demand for support is as high now as it ever was.
"The Trussell Trust [foodbank community organisation] did their mid-year-stats in November and the trend across the North was that it was down but in Foyle we were 11 per cent up.
"I had initially thought that our numbers would have been down in terms of doing that wraparound support and moving people on but it is still too high,” she says.