President Michael D Higgins praised an arts project for drug users, saying it empowers people to explore “positive aspects” of themselves, to defeat the “negative”.

The homeless crisis is going to get worse despite a €10m budget allocation, while projects working with drug users had their funding "chiselled away" during the consecutive austerity budgets.

Opening tonight in Dublin’s Smock Alley theatre, A Hundred Years Ago is a new play by RADE, a social project that helps drug users through immersion in the arts.