A 43-year-old man who has been on housing waiting lists for 14 years in Co Kerry is sleeping on a kitchen floor after being ill in hospital.
Mr Liam O'Connor, a well-known street musician in Killarney, is sleeping on the floor of a house belonging to Killarney farmer Mr Dermot Coffey.
He had recently been hospitalised with pneumonia and Mr Coffey said Mr O'Connor could not be left to sleep in a shed on his land or in the Killarney National Park as he had been doing. Mr O'Connor has never been housed permanently by the county council, but has been accommodated temporarily on occasion.
Two years ago a fully serviced mobile home provided by the farmer, Mr Coffey, to house Mr O'Connor was removed by court order obtained by the county council because it did not have planning permission. Mr O'Connor began sleeping rough again.
Several local politicians, including TDs Ms Breeda Moynihan Cronin (Lab) and Mr Jackie Healy-Rae (Ind), and Fine Gael Senator Paul Coghlan, have lent their names to a petition to allow planning for a small number of mobile homes to house the homeless on Mr Coffey's 30-acre farm.
The politicians said they were confident the development would be run in a proper manner if granted permission, and it would help to address the homeless situation in Killarney.
In a letter written in August on Mr O'Connor's behalf, a local GP, Dr Jim Crehan, said he feared Mr O'Connor would not survive the winter without accommodation.
He suffers from alcoholism and depression but is well-liked in the town. He has recently given up alcohol.
Yesterday he rejected the county council housing officer's claim that several options for accommodation were offered to him. He said they offered him two: one was a pre-fab in a remote area seven-and-a-half miles from Killarney and the other was in a hostel in the town.
"I am determined to get my life together. I need a place of my own, that I can turn the key in the door without having to look over my shoulder," Mr O'Connor said.
Mr Coffey, who said he is acting out of compassion and is not trying to get a caravan park in the area, has spent thousands of euro in attempting to accommodate homeless people on his lands.
"Someone has to do something for others in this life," he said.
The council turned down his application for five mobile homes in 2001. An Bord Pleanála upheld the decision.