812 homeless people sleep on cafe floor in two months

The country’s only night cafe for homeless people accommodated 812 different people in its first two months alone — illustrating the scale of the homeless crisis.

The night cafe, operated by Merchant’s Quay Ireland at its centre in Dublin, received 3,018 separate referrals between January 21 and March 23, the majority of whom were sent by the Central Placement Service via its freephone number.

The cafe allows up to 50 people to sleep on floors on crash mats, with up to 18 people in a room, and clients are only referred to the service after other beds in the system are allocated and all other openings exhausted.