A new survey in the three most populated eastern counties has found twice as many people homeless than had previously been thought.
The figures, from a survey taken in March this year, suggest there are 2,900 adults without a home in Dublin, Kildare and Wicklow at any one time. The previous estimate was 1,447. Those counted had made contact with a homeless service or been accepted as homeless by a local authority.
The Homeless Initiative, a project directed by Dublin Corporation, the Eastern Health Board and various voluntary and statutory bodies, had commissioned the Economic and Social Research Institute to arrive at an accurate figure for the EHB region.
The researchers found almost 3,000 people were homeless in the region in the week of the survey - almost all of them in Dublin. The voluntary agencies - Dublin Simon Community, Failtiu Day Centre, Merchant's Quay Project, Threshold and Focus Ireland - responded by calling for a major expansion in social and public housing as well as a range of other measures to alleviate the situation.
Mr Greg Maxwell of Dublin Simon Community said yesterday that the finding that 2,900 people were homeless in the week of the survey meant that 10,000 people could experience homelessness for periods in Dublin in any one year.
The report, "Counted In" says "for a significant number of people homelessness is not a transitory state but something of a permanent condition". In the EHB area 420 people had been homeless for all of the last five years.