The European Parliament will discuss Ireland's homelessness crisis today.
Department of Housing figures show there were over 2,500 children homeless in December and more than 7,000 overall without secure accommodation that month.
The gathering in Brussels this week will review the situation across Europe and it'll hear Ireland has the fastest rate of families becoming homeless within the EU.
One of those due to speak to delegates is Focus Ireland's Mike Allen.
“One of the things that is holding us back from being able to properly invest in social housing - to get local authorities to build the housing rather than depending on private developers - is the European rules about levels of government debt and so on.”