Housing campaigner Fr Peter McVerry has warned that the number of homeless people could reach 16,000 by the next general election.
He claimed the only way the growing crisis of homelessness would be solved was when there's a Housing Minister "angry enough to bang heads together and get things done."
Currently, there are more than 12,800 people in emergency accommodation.
Fr McVerry said an additional 200 to 250 were becoming homeless each month.
He was speaking at an event in Dublin organised by People Before Profit.
PBP deputy Richard Boyd Barrett warned that emergency action was required by government to stem the tide of homelessness.
One step the Coalition could take, the Dun Laoghaire TD said, was to to re-introduce the temporary evictions ban.
They party will use its private members time this week to try and speed-up the passage of its Eviction Ban Bill.
He said the fact that nearly 4,000 children were homeless in Ireland was a "shameful statistic" for a country that was "one of the wealthiest in the world."
Meanwhile, the Sinn Féin TD housing spokesperson, Eoin Ó'Broin, said the latest statistics published by the Department of Housing - which show 1,401 newly-built social houses in the first six months of 2023 - were "appalingly low".
He said: "The reason why more and more young people have been forced to live at home in their 20s and 30s is because the government are failing to deliver affordable homes".
