On Monday night, ICHH observed 238 people sleeping rough in Dublin, the highest number ever recorded.

Hundreds of homeless families are turning down rented accommodation and are instead going into B&Bs and hotels in the hope of fast-tracking their offer of a local authority home, it has been revealed.

A charity is to set up a number of support centres to help former soldiers, sailors and aircrews.

One Dublin hotel was last year paid €4m to €5m to accommodate the spiralling numbers of homeless in the capital.

The Government has been warned that the homelessness crisis may worsen unless steps are taken to protect people in the private, rented sector, after latest figures showed a record 9,104 people were homeless in January.

A report from the Residential Tenancies Board (RTB) shows the average rent being paid across the country is now €1056, up from €965 a year earlier.

A homeless man has died after being found unresponsive in a tent in one of the wealthiest parts of Dublin.

It is difficult to escape the conclusion that Solidarity TDs — not always known for sober assessment — are correct in arguing that there appears to be a co-ordinated by the Government to “spin” the narrative on the housing crisis.

An urgent call for O negative blood donors has been made by the Irish Blood Transfusion Service after supplies dwindled to just four days because of the loss of a full day’s collection due to Storm Ophelia.

Dublin City Council is paying hotels, hostels and other emergency accommodation providers almost €1m a week to shelter the spiralling numbers of homeless in the capital.

The ISPCC has today said that children who are currently homeless in Ireland are worse off than children who are homeless in the UK.

Focus Ireland is finding it impossible to keep pace with the rate of homelessness.

The Housing Minister admits there is concern that trying to secure emergency hotel accommodation for homeless families will be more difficult during the summer season.

There are 1,054 families with 2,177 children in homeless accommodation around the country.

Another 85 families became homeless last month, a leading charity has revealed.

Focus Ireland, and other homelessness organisations, have expressed “alarm” at further likely delays in the delivery of modular housing units in the capital, because the initial tender has been withdrawn.

A leading homelessness campaigner has claimed, despite a national outcry over the death of a man outside the Dáil at Christmas, entire families are facing life on the streets for the first time “since the Famine”.

Up to 80 additional beds are being provided for homeless people in Dublin.

People at risk of homelessness should get long-term, stable accommodation to prevent them from becoming institutionalised within the current system.

Two anonymous donors who gifted the Dublin Simon Community (DSC) a combined €700,000 in their wills last year, saved the charity from going into the red in 2012.