The number of people sleeping rough in Dublin has risen by more than 60 per cent in the past three years. A "street count" carried out by the Dublin Simon Community in October showed there were 202 people sleeping out in the city centre, compared with 149 in 1998 and 125 in 1997.
The Dublin figure is more than the combined total for Manchester, Birmingham, Liverpool, Oxford and Nottingham and shows that homelessness in Dublin is at "crisis point", says the director of Dublin Simon, Mr Greg Maxwell. Homeless figures in other cities around the State are also rising. The housing charity Focus Ireland said in August that the new homeless were ordinary people "pushed into homelessness because of a lack of affordable or social housing".