Ireland's emergency housing figures hit 14,000

Urgent action is needed to tackle a lack of housing in Ireland, a charity has said, after the number of people in emergency accommodation hit more than 14,000.

New monthly homelessness statistics show that more than 4,000 children are among those seeking permanent homes.

It represents a 14% rise in the number of homeless people housed in emergency accommodation over the last year.

The head of Depaul, a homelessness charity, said the government needs to take "emergency action" on the lack of housing.

David Carroll said it was something the charity was calling for consistently and that the government's housing targets need to go up from 33,000 homes by 2025 to 50,000 homes.

Another charity, Focus Ireland, called on the government to implement key recommendations from a recent Housing Commission report.

What do the Irish homelessness figures say?

The figures, published by the Department of Housing, look at the amount of homeless people being housed in emergency accommodation and does not include rough sleepers, people in domestic violence shelters or those seeking asylum.

The amount of people in emergency accommodation has been steadily on the increase since the data was first collected in 2014.

The figures show that 14,009 people were seeking accommodation in April - up 143 from March.

The data also showed that 1,996 families were in emergency accommodation in April, 15 more than the previous month.

In Dublin, the number of people in emergency accommodation is now 10,216.

Catherine Kenny, the chief executive of the Dublin Simon Community Centre, said she believes the increases are due to less people leaving emergency accommodation.

"This is leading to more congestion in an already gridlocked housing system," she said.

Irish Minister for Housing, Darragh O'Brien, said there was determination to deal with the homelessness issue.

He added that increasing housing supply "is the key to resolving the current crisis and it is the absolute focus of the government".