Belfast food bank adds evening opening as cost-of-living crisis bites
A food bank in Belfast has described the pressure it is facing as a "tidal wave approaching".
The South Belfast Foodbank said it was 75% busier in March than during the same month last year.
Project manager Bruce Gardiner-Crehan said more people in work were turning to the service.
As a result of that the food bank is offering an evening session to cater for people outside working hours.
"People are being forced to handle a catastrophe - it's this cost of living crisis that everyone's in," said Mr Gardiner-Crehan.
"The pressure from all angles - there's no real end in sight. It feels like this tidal wave is approaching.
"Unless politicians step up, work together, I think short-term emergency food like the sort of food you see here is going to be needed more and more.
"And dare I say for people even in work."
He said someone who worked as a nurse had recently turned to the food bank.
"I was really concerned to hear someone in work, in a good job having to use a food bank.
"I think she was unwell and so she potentially wasn’t working at the time but yeah, things are pretty bad even for people in work.
"So we've started an evening session ready for, sad to say, more people who are in work coming to need to use the food bank."
The South Belfast Foodbank is part of the wider Trussell Trust network.
Last week the charity reported that it had distributed a record number of food parcels in Northern Ireland.
It said it sent out 81,084 parcels between April 2022 and March 2023 - that represents the most food parcels the charity has ever distributed in the region in a single year.
Video journalist: Lyndsey Telford