A man who was a drug addict and homeless for a decade said he decided to get help after a woman talked to him 'like he was a human'.
Kenny Eivers now works as a Dublin tour guide after being homeless "on and off" for 10 years.
He told Lunchtime Live he wanted to shine a light on the homeless crisis.
"I was basically homeless for 10 years, so I kind of know the streets inside out.
"The tour is I start in Dublin Castle, and I bring people around and I give them a bit of history, and I talk about the homeless crisis and that."
"I talk about my time being on the streets".
On this, he said: "I was basically in drug addiction - I came out of prison, I had nowhere to go
"Basically I ended up on the streets.
"When I walk around the streets now I see people sitting in doorways and that, and I see a lot of people walk by them and they purposefully turn the other way.
"I just kind of decided that these people have a voice, and when I was offered to do the tours I says 'Right I'll do it, I can shine a light on the crisis'.
"At the moment it's starting to come back out again, there's a lot of people on the streets again.
"The Government just keep on pushing it under the carpet - it's basically a numbers game for them.
"But by my doing this I can show people the other side of Dublin".
The Ha'penny Bridge is seen over Dublin's River Liffey in 2007. Picture by: The Irish Image Collection/Zuma Press/PA Images'It lit a spark in me'
"Basically I was just sitting in the streets one day and I was really bad, like.
"And a lady who works in Coolmine - Coolmine's a therapeutic community, they do a day programme, they also do treatment centres - she seen me in the doorway and she kind of offered her hand out and she talked to me like I was a human.
"I hadn't got that interaction with people for a long time.
"It just lit a little spark in me; and then I decided then I done the day programme, I stabilised on my methadone, I done that for a few months and I went to a treatment centre."
"I went back into Coolmine then drug free for six months and I done a bit of work on myself.
"And then that's kind of like how it started.
"My housemate - he was doing the tours - and I seen him doing it and I says 'I can do that'".
'Do or die moment'
"It was kind of like a do or die moment: continue the way I was and be dead within a year, or get up and do something about it, and I did".
"Me and me housemate we met in treatment, we were in the same treatment centre, and then we went to the recovery house together, and then we moved into a two-bed house together.
"It kind of started off as a little bit of banter: he was doing it and I seen him doing the interview and I said 'Ah I can do that'.
"And then when I start doing it and started studying the history of Dublin that I was thinking 'I can actually do this'.
"I've done a couple of practice tours, and I done my first tour there last Sunday and it went well.
"I got lot of feedback at the end of it".
His housemate, Shane, said: "How I found out about it was when I was in this treatment centre I picked up the newspaper one day and I seen an article with an old friend of mine in it and I seen what he was doing.
"And I think everyone on the streets has a story to be honest with you.
"I knew straight away I wanted to do that, you know."
He explained that it is done through the Dublin Simon Community, which supports them.
"A friend of mine started doing it and I followed on and started doing it then as well".
More information can be found on www.secretstreettours.org
