Dublin's oldest working charity says vandals smashed its windows and threatened staff, forcing it to shut yesterday.

The Mendicity Institution in The Liberties suffered a similar attack last summer.

The Institution opened in 1818 and has been helping people in Dublin for more than 200 years and serves 700 meals a day.

The charity says it prides itself on a welcoming ‘open door’ policy for all who need it but that they were forced to close yesterday after serious threats and vandalism.

A picture posted on Twitter showed the upstairs window of the centre on Island Street in the Liberties had been smashed.

We pride ourselves on a welcoming ‘open door’ policy for all who need us. Today we were forced to close after serious threats and an act of vandalism, smashing our windows. An apology to service users written in 5 languages now taped to our door. Charity is not an ‘extreme sport’ pic.twitter.com/uzY8deSBb6 — The Mendicity (@Mendicity1818) January 8, 2020

In a follow-up tweet, the charity said they were "disheartened that at Government level, no value is placed on essential services, like ours, for Dublin’s homeless".

Last August, the organisation had to shut after a similar incident.

At the time, staff said they would have to consider whether or not to stop its open door policy.