Cork Penny Dinners say people are turning to money lenders in an effort to deal with the cost of living and are struggling to cope.
The charity have seen an increase in families who normally don't need to avail of the service come to them for help after becoming caught up with owing money to multiple lenders.
The soup kitchen say they were prepared for a spike in people coming to them for help this week as children won't receive school lunches while they are on mid-term break.
Speaking to RedFM News, Caitriona Twomey of Cork Penny Dinners, says being at the mercy of money-lenders can cause extreme anxiety and is calling on the Government to intervene:
"If everybody's talking about cost of living then we do have a problem, we have an issue, but if people are suffering badly because of this we have a problem, whereby a person's mental health is affected because it has everything to do with the cast 11 has a ripple effect on people were adequate to get the money to pay what they need to pay for over to the government. Check the people seriously, look at this and just try and fix the problems in the country."
