More than 400 extra emergency beds for the homeless will be provided in Dublin this winter.
As part of its cold weather strategy the Dublin Region Homeless Executive (DRHE) announced on Friday it would make available an additional 173 beds immediately with 150 more coming on stream in March. These will be open 24 hours a day with meals provided on-site.
In addition, 104 “extreme weather” beds will be available in the event of exceptionally cold, wet or windy weather.
These will be in addition to the more than 10,701 emergency beds already occupied by homeless people in Dublin, including 7,313 adults and 3,388 children, last month. Of these, 4,726 were homeless adults without dependent children – a 15 per cent increase since September 2023 when there were 4,085.
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In a statement the DRHE said: “In order to meet the increase in demand for homeless services and have the appropriate contingency plans in place for cold weather conditions, we are activating the cold weather strategy 2024-2025 in the Dublin region.
“The ... strategy focuses on expanding current capacity to meet increasing demand for emergency accommodation whilst also providing a targeted response for people who are long-term rough sleeping.
“The cold weather provides opportunities for more assertive engagement with long-term, entrenched rough sleepers and hard-to-reach groups, aimed at placing them in appropriate and long-term accommodation.”
A spokesman confirmed none of these would be available to the more than 2,800 homeless male asylum seekers, however, saying their accommodation was “a matter for the Department of Children”.
According to latest figures from the department, as of Tuesday, there were 2,808 male asylum seekers “awaiting offer of accommodation”.
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Since December 4th the department’s International Protection Accommodation Service has not been providing shelter to single, adult, male international protection applicants on presentation at the International Protection Office. A total of 6,002 have applied since then, of whom 2,547 have since been accommodated and 647 offered shelter following a “vulnerability triage”.
Volunteers say while this cohort should be offered shelter on arrival, those they were meeting sleeping rough around Dublin were “generally getting offers within a few days”.
One volunteer, who has been supporting homeless asylum seekers since early 2024, said: “The speed with which they are getting accommodation has improved, generally within four to five nights, or even less. But they just need accommodation on arrival. They are walking around in wet clothes all day and getting into wet sleeping bags.”
One man, who gave his name as Issa (34), from Sierra Leone, was bedding down on Sunday night on wet ground, in a wet tent, in a sheltered area in south Dublin, having arrived in Ireland on October 21st, he said.
“It is very, very difficult. It is too cold. It is not easy for us. There is a lot of struggle here. But the country is so peaceful, the people are good people.”
The Department of Children was asked by The Irish Times about winter plans to shelter male asylum seekers, and about opening of accommodation in Thornton Hall in north Co Dublin. It had not responded at the time of publication.
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