No questions are asked, no judgements passed. There are no rules beyond appropriate conduct.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\nMost of all, there is the warmth of other human beings in an environment where, unlike on the streets, they are no longer invisible.<\/p>\n
Jeanette spoke to Alice. How were they going to manage this?<\/p>\n
Romi was a non-person as far as officialdom was concerned. He had no papers, no PPS number, no passport. He didn\u2019t even have a phone. He was without means.<\/p>\n
He couldn\u2019t just rock up to Dublin Airport and hop on a flight home. And there was also an issue about his suitability to fly.<\/p>\n
Romi had suffered a brain injury a few years back that had in many ways sent his life spiralling down to its current station.<\/p>\n
Physically, he was a tall man, wiry, with a shaven head. He had a tendency to wave his arms around as if he was directing an airplane on a runway. It was a feature of his personality that, if you didn\u2019t know him, you might consider threatening.<\/p>\n
Apart from anything else he might not be let onto a plane. How were they going to get Romi home?<\/p>\n
Stable family<\/h3>\n Romi Ramtohul was 32 years of age when he arrived in Ireland in 2006.<\/p>\n
His native Mauritius is a small island in the Indian Ocean with a population of 1.27m which is a favoured and expensive tourist destination.<\/p>\n
Romi came from a stable family. His father was a pastor, a role that delivered a certain standing in a society where religion is widely practiced.<\/p>\n
There were three siblings in the family, Romi, his twin brother and a sister. Romi\u2019s brother would in time rise to a prominent role in the government of Mauritius.<\/p>\nAlan O’Dowd, Romi, Alice Leahy, and Damien McCarthy prior to the trip to Mauritius.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nAs with Ireland from a different time, a tradition of emigration meant that leaving was always an option if things weren\u2019t going well at home for whatever reason.<\/p>\n
In 2006, he became another statistic in the great global migration from the underdeveloped south to the wealthy north.<\/p>\n
Life in Ireland began well for him. He found work with little bother, mainly in catering. He worked as a chef in Dublin but spent time around the country, with an extended stay in Co Clare.<\/p>\n
In the capital, he was employed for a long period in Kiely\u2019s in Donnybrook, where he was a popular figure with locals and the rugby fraternity who used to frequent the hostelry.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Romi had his eccentricities; he didn\u2019t conform to the strictures of society, preferring a somewhat nomadic existence.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\nHe was one of those people who through constitution or character or some personal quirk was either beyond, or disinterested in, conforming to all the mores of \u201cnormal\u201d society.<\/p>\n
He first walked into the Alice Leahy Trust in 2014.<\/p>\n
This was a time when homelessness was ramping up, the country economically battered with many unable to afford private rented accommodation. By then he had been sleeping rough, but he was still working.<\/p>\n
Alice and her colleagues got to know him. He was always pleasant and engaging.<\/p>\n
According to records he was a frequent visitor to the organisation over the following five years.<\/p>\n
Sometimes he had a place in hostels, other times he slept rough. His eccentric behaviour probably, on occasion, lost him places in hostels.<\/p>\n
Brain injury<\/h3>\n In 2016, he was the victim of an assault. The exact circumstances are unclear, but violence is a constant danger for those on the streets.<\/p>\n
Two years later he had a brain clot which may have been associated with the earlier assault. This time he was hospitalised for a period in Beaumont, which specialises in head injuries.<\/p>\n
From that point, it appears as if Romi\u2019s circumstances went into a downward spiral.<\/p>\n
He was unable to work as a result of the latest incident and that saw him spending more time on the streets with next to or no resources.<\/p>\n
He made the newspapers in February 2019 about a minor incident for which he was prosecuted. Dublin District Court was told that Romi had been working as a chef but had had a fall and suffered seizures and had not worked since.<\/p>\n
He was in court for being drunk and a danger to traffic. The incident occurred on Parnell Square where garda\u00ed observed him dodging in and out of traffic, causing motorists to brake suddenly.<\/p>\n
His solicitor told the judge that Romi was \u201cliving on his wits\u201d, and that he drank too much at times and his mental health \u201cwas not where it should be\u201d.<\/p>\n
Romi is not, the solicitor said, a violent person. The judge fined him \u20ac200.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\nThe court report provided a window into the world of people like Romi, who find themselves thrust onto the margins of society.<\/p>\n
He had, as the court was told, mental health difficulties. He was also drinking to excess, common among those who are homeless.<\/p>\n
<\/div>\n
Alcohol may be used as a painkiller for life or it may be that addiction was the agent that sent an individual on a downward spiral.<\/p>\nAlan O’Dowd, Romi, and Damien McCarthy on their journey to repatriate Romi to Mauritius.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nThe drinking is done in public, not behind closed doors so any resultant fall-out is also very public and frequently leads to conflict with the law for minor infringements.<\/p>\n
Society\u2019s response to such an individual in this instance was, through the court, to impose a fine on him.<\/p>\n
He was a man without means. Yet the only way the court saw to deal with him was to tell him to pay a fine which he was unlikely to ever be in a position to do.<\/p>\n
And if the process was followed through to its legal conclusion, the homeless, damaged individual, unable to pay his debt to society, would be imprisoned.<\/p>\n
By then Romi was in the kind of rut from which it is difficult to extract oneself.<\/p>\n
He had lived the big adventure, the shot at a new life.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\nHe had made a good fist of it for the best part of a decade. But there would be no route back to those days of relative stability.<\/p>\n
A new dream began to foment in his imagination. He could try again. He could go back to familiarity and family.<\/p>\n
Home was where he wanted to be.<\/p>\n
Alice and Jeanette have over the decades tackled all sorts of problems on behalf of the people who frequent the trust. Finding a way to get Romi home though would be beyond them.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe wouldn\u2019t have known where to start,\u201d Alice says.<\/p>\n
So they enlisted two men who might well know how to put together a man\u2019s identity and organise to get him home.<\/p>\n
Damien McCarthy and Alan O\u2019Dowd are members of An Garda S\u00edoch\u00e1na, based in Pearse St station in Dublin city centre.<\/p>\n
<\/div>\n
The Alice Leahy Trust has had many contacts with the garda\u00ed in Pearse St over the years.<\/p>\n
Alice contacted Damien and he and Alan agreed to help out in their spare time. They arranged to meet with Romi.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis wasn\u2019t just a question of organising an appointment that suits all parties,\u201d Damien McCarthy says.<\/p>\n
\u201cRomi was living an itinerant lifestyle, moving around. He might show up in the [Alice Leahy] trust one morning and not be seen again for a week.\u201d<\/p>\n
Basic organisation of his personal life was not a priority.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\nThey met as they would so often over the months to follow. Romi would show up at the trust, Jeanette would ring one of garda\u00ed and if they weren\u2019t busy they could pop in for a minute.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou could see straight away that he needed help,\u201d Damien remembers.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere was a want in him. We had been briefed by Alice about how complex his needs were and we got the rest of the story from himself.\u201d<\/p>\nRomi on the first leg of his journey about to depart from Dublin Airport.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nFirst stop on the road back to Mauritius was the International Organisation for Migration (IOM).<\/p>\n
Romi told the two garda\u00ed that he had been directed towards the IOM but he wasn\u2019t making much progress there.<\/p>\n
The IOM has offices in over 100 countries and is \u201cdedicated to promoting humane and orderly migration for all\u201d, including those interested in \u201cvoluntary return\u201d to their homeland.<\/p>\n
Damien and Alan accompanied Romi to the organisation\u2019s well-appointed office in Baggot St, where they didn\u2019t detect an open arm welcome for the immigrant who wanted to go home.<\/p>\n
Despite having already attended there himself, it would appear that things hadn\u2019t even moved off first base in Romi\u2019s case. The two garda\u00ed were told that the organisation would require a passport photo.<\/p>\n
<\/div>\n
Off they went to get Romi\u2019s photo taken at a shop on Grafton St. At the entrance to the shop, Damien could see that the man inside was eyeing them warily. Romi was all excited, his arms going like the clappers.<\/p>\n
Damien approached the man and set his mind at ease, told him they were garda\u00ed and what they were about.<\/p>\n
Romi posed for his photo, his face alight with glee, attending as if he were a child on safari.<\/p>\n
He liked the attention but he also knew this was the first sign of real progress in realising his dream.<\/p>\n
The photos were delivered. A few days later, Damien and Alan returned to the IOM to see how things were moving along. Not well. The woman told them Romi had been in and he wasn\u2019t taking medicine that had been prescribed him.<\/p>\n
He would require certification from a doctor to be allowed on any plane. No problem, the men said, and set about tracking down Romi again, this time with a view to setting up an appointment with a doctor.<\/p>\n
This would require more work as it meant having to organise Romi to turn up at a specified time.<\/p>\n
They managed to do that and an appointment was made with Dr Austin O\u2019Carroll for the Granby Centre in Parnell Square.<\/p>\n
Austin O\u2019Carroll has a well-earned reputation for putting his services at the disposal of those most in need.<\/p>\n
Following the examination, he recommended that Romi get the all-clear also from a psychiatrist, Kevin Kilbride. Another appointment was made.<\/p>\n
Dr Kilbride assessed him and determined that Romi was fit to fly.<\/p>\n
The two garda\u00ed learned later that when he was alone with the psychiatrist, Romi stood up on a chair and waved his hands around, talking about how Alice and Jeanette had helped him and how he was proud that Damien and Alan were his friends.<\/p>\n
Once again, his unique character was on display.<\/p>\n
The wheel turned slowly. The two garda\u00ed dropped back to the IOM to see how things were progressing.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were told that they had been having problems with Romi, that he came in and he was violent,\u201d Damien says.<\/p>\n
\u201cI told them that if anybody was violent on their premises the thing to do was ring 999, but nobody did that.\u201d<\/p>\n
We got the impression that they weren\u2019t too interested in dealing with Romi maybe because of his personality. They weren\u2019t putting much time into getting to know him.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\nIn a statement to the\u00a0