The number of rough sleepers in Dublin has fallen by almost a quarter, according to latest figures.
Dublin Simon conducted a “rough sleeper count” for the Dublin Region Homeless Executive which shows the number of people sleeping rough in the capital has fallen from 125 in April to 94 in October.
The count was completed over the week October 25 to 31 and found that 82 of the 94 were engaging with homeless services.
Of these, 65 were women and 17 were men.
Sam McGuinness, CEO of Dublin Simon Community, said that the team are reporting mental health difficulties among the rough sleepers.
He said: "Challenges remain on the ground with the team reporting severely entrenched rough sleeping, mental health difficulties and calls for more couples beds and single rooms.
"We look forward to enabling a further drop in rough sleeping over the coming months and to collaborating further to overcome the remaining issues."
A DRHE spokesperson said there was planning with gardai to carry out the count.
They said: "Over 7 days the outreach teams visited all known areas of rough sleeping in the Dublin region.
"Additional staff were deployed to ensure more intense coverage of city centre areas.
"There was planning and communication with Gardaí and staff in the 4 Dublin Local Authorities to ensure that they were fully informed about any individuals who were known to be rough sleeping, particularly in isolated areas."
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