A working group has been set up to prepare for a possible influx of foreign people ending up homeless in Dublin after Brexit.
Dublin City Council set up the internal group as the numbers of foreign-nationals becoming homeless are already increasing.
It comes as a new study shows foreign nationals being one of the groups most vulnerable to homeless along with lone parents and larger families.
Brendan Kenny, Assistant Chief Executive with Dublin City Council, says a working group has been established to plan for a possible increase in the number of foreign nationals becoming homeless after Brexit.
He said Dublin had already seen increasing numbers of non-European Union nationals in particular arriving and ending up on the streets.
Mr Kenny said part of the problem was the length of time it took to process an application to stay.
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The new study shows that lone parent, foreign national and larger families are the most vulnerable to becoming homeless according to a new study.
The report commissioned by the Dublin Region Homeless Executive studied 1,878 families who presented as homeless in 2016 and 2017.
It found that 66% were lone parent families, compared to 24% in the general population, while 14% had four or more children, compared to 7% generally.
It said 33% were foreign-born, compared to 12% in the country as a whole.
The foreign-born proportion was made up of 21% from outside the EU and 12% from other EU states.
The report also found that homeless families were able to leave emergency accommodation much quicker if they took up offers of Housing Assistance Payment tenancies.
More than half of those that got a place to live went into HAP tenancies and waited an average of four months, but those getting a local authority or voluntary housing unit had to wait an average of 13 months or a year.
It found that 15% of families left emergency accommodation without giving a reason and half of these left with a month.
Of the remainder, 38% moved into tenancies, 44% were still in emergency accommodation, 0.8% went back to emergency accommodation, 0.2% went back in with family or friends, while there was insufficient information for 2%.
The report found there were peaks for new homeless families: In January following the Christmas period and in July and August during the school holidays.
The most common reason was notice of termination for rental accommodation experienced by 45%, while 31% cited relationship breakdown and 11% overcrowding.
The report found that more and more families are presenting as homeless, up from 34 per month in 2014 to 81 in 2017, more and more are being housed.
The number of homeless families increased by 106% in 2015, but this increase was down to 9% last year.
However, the report also noted that at the end of last year, 82 families had been in emergency accommodation for more than two years.
