457 children homeless in Ireland, census reveals

Of those, 2,539 were male and 1,269 were female.

457 homeless children

There were 386 people aged 60 years and over among the homeless population while those aged 0-19 accounted for 641 of the group. Among those, there were 457 children aged up to 14 years old.

A total of 64 homeless people were found sleeping rough, all but six of them males.

A total of 1,660 of the adults indicated that they were in the labour force at the time of the census.

Fifteen percent of the homeless population - or 553 people - were not Irish. UK nationals were the largest group, accounting for 139 of the total number.

There were 140 people from African countries, 77 of whom were female.

Lat year was the first time that a comprehensive approach to measuring homelessness was adopted as part of a Census in Ireland.

Health issues

Almost a third of the homeless population rated their general health as being ‘Fair’, ‘Bad’ or ‘Very bad’, compared with 10% of the general population.

After Dublin, the region with the highest number of homeless people was the south east. Of the 403 homeless people counted in this region, 216 were male.

The proportion of people with disabilities among the homeless population was significantly higher than for the general population. A total of 1,581 persons had a disability, representing 42% of the total, in sharp contrast to the general population where the rate was 13%.

The most common type of disability among the homeless population was a psychological or an emotional condition. Almost one in five homeless people indicated that they had a disability in this category.

A further 18% had a difficulty with pain, breathing or another chronic illness or condition, with 15% indicating a difficulty working at a job or business or attending school or college.

*4,588,252 individuals were counted in the census last year.