The lead agency with responsibility for responding to homelessness across the capital received more than 120 complaints last year.

The nature of the complaints were released to Newstalk under Freedom of Information.

The Dublin Regional Homeless Executive (DRHE) received 122 complaints last year about homeless services.

The organisation works with several NGOs and private companies to run dozens of hostels and other accommodation facilities for homeless people in the Dublin region.

Complaints were made about houses or apartments in use through the Housing Assistance Payment Scheme, drug use in the facilities, while many centred on living conditions in housing.

Fr Peter McVerry speaking in Dublin in November 2017. Picture by: PA Images / Alamy Stock Photo/ Niall Carson

Homeless campaigner Fr Peter McVerry said homeless services are very constrained.

"If a homeless service has a house with six rooms in it, they'll be asked to put two bunkbeds into each room and accommodate 24 people," he said.

"So, I think the onus comes back on the Government."

Housing and homeless charities have warned the Government decision to end a temporary ban on evictions may lead to a huge surge in the numbers of people and children becoming homeless in the coming months.

The director of advocacy with Focus Ireland, Mike Allen, said the standard of emergency accommodation needs to improve.

"It's undignified to have to share with people you don't know," he said.

"It's very, very worsening circumstances and the conditions in homeless accommodation have got worse over the last number of months - and will continue to get seriously worse," he added.

Some 11,754 people were in emergency homeless accommodation at the end of January.

DRHE response

In a statement, the DRHE said it "proactively encourages anyone accessing emergency accommodation that wishes to make a complaint, to do so."

"We promote the complaints process through a designated Complaints Officer and circulate posters and literature to all accommodation facilities, informing service users of the complaints process.

"The DRHE uses the complaints process to learn, adapt and improve the services available to individuals experiencing homelessness.

"There are eight complaints received in 2022 that are still open, with investigations ongoing," the statement added.

Main image: A homeless person begging on a street in Dun Laoghaire, Co Dublin in January 2021. Picture by: NurPhoto SRL / Alamy Stock Photo