The number of people accessing emergency accommodation reached a record high of 15,418 at the end of the first quarter of the year, official figures show.
The total, counted in the last full week of March, includes 10,743 adults as well as 4,675 children in 2,212 families, according to figures published by the Department of Housing on Friday.
The total has increased by 3.7 per cent (554 people) since the end of December, by 11.2 per cent (1,552 people) over the last year and by 40 since the end of February.
The numbers do not include people sleeping rough, couch-surfing, staying in domestic violence refuges or unaccommodated asylum seekers.
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In Dublin, where the housing crisis is most acute, there were 7,537 adults and 3,487 children in emergency accommodation, the department said.
Outside of the capital, counties Kildare, Meath and Wicklow in the mideast and Galway, Mayo and Roscommon in the west were the regions where the highest number of families accessing emergency accommodation were recorded.
The figures show the majority of adults in emergency accommodation are aged between 25 and 44, with 5,742 people in this age bracket.
Focus Ireland chief executive Pat Dennigan said the organisation has, for years, been arguing that homelessness is not inevitable but rather a consequence of policy choices.
“We could not have a clearer demonstration of this than today’s figures,” he said.
“The Government fell nearly 1,500 homes short of its 9,300 social housing target last year because it chose to choke off momentum in the approved housing sector by not signing off on funding for pipeline projects.”
He said restrictions on the tenant-in-situ scheme would “inevitably result in people becoming homeless who would otherwise have remained securely housed”.
Dublin Simon Community said the latest figures paint a grim picture, with more than 11,000 people living in emergency accommodation in Dublin alone for the first time.
The Salvation Army said it was “appalling” that more than 3,000 children in the capital face a summer in emergency accommodation.
Meanwhile, Sinn Féin housing spokesman Eoin Ó Broin said it was completely unacceptable that as homelessness continues to rise, the Government is “slashing funding for vital homeless prevention schemes including the tenant-in-situ scheme and the housing first programme”.
“These funding cuts will result in fewer acquisitions in 2025,” he said. “As a result, more people will become homeless, and more people will remain trapped in emergency accommodation for longer periods of time.”
He urged Minister for Housing James Browne to “lift the severe restrictions on the operation of the tenant-in-situ scheme”.
Social Democrats housing spokesman Rory Hearne said there were 256 more children in emergency accommodation at the end of March than six months earlier.
“These trends will continue unless there is a radical shift in Government policy,” he said. “The fact that this week the Minister was patting himself on the back over failed social housing delivery targets while we have record homelessness shows the disconnect between this Government and the reality of the housing emergency.”
Labour housing spokesman Conor Sheehan described the figures as a “national scandal” which was a direct result of “Government failure to treat housing as the emergency it clearly is”.
“We need a radical reset in how this Government approaches housing,” he said. “We need to start treating this crisis like the emergency it is, with the urgency and bold vision it demands.”
