Senator Aubrey McCarthy

People don't go there to support a charity.

They go there because it's the best bloody coffee you were going to get.

And also we have a bakery there, we have a sauna.

And again, all of that brings the community in to meet people who were marginalised before.

They become part of the community and now we're as good as everybody else.

What do you say to that?

I say, listen to the news.

Eurostat on your headlines was saying that Ireland is the most expensive place for housing in Europe.

You look at the emergency accommodation figures, over 17,500, 5,600 of those are children.

So there's people that are marginalised.

But can I tell you, we launched a homeless report this week.

I'm on the Oireachtas Committee on Housing.

The homeless report showed that the demographics for homelessness have radically changed.

So I'm involved.

I run a lighthouse project.

It's called the Lighthouse on Pear Street.

We feed 500 people a day.

But you know what's happened, Pat?

People are coming in that actually have a job and they have a tent in Sandy Mount or Ring's End and they work five days a week and then they go home to rural Ireland.

The reason they're living in a tent is because they cannot afford accommodation in Dublin.