70 adults in emergency accommodation in Westmeath

The Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage have released their monthly homelessness report, which shows the number of individuals, families and children in homeless emergency accommodation.

The figures make for stark reading, and show that there are currently 17,308 people accessing emergency accommodation, 5,457 of whom are children.

The majority of people in emergency accommodation are in Dublin, but there are high numbers in the Mid-East and Midlands.

The most common age for people who are residing in these accommodations are from 25 to 44, although there are still 153 people aged over 65.

In terms of the number of adults accessing emergency accommodation in the week ending February 22, a full county breakdown is available in the report.

These figures are just adults and do not include families.

Some highlights include:

Meath: 316 people

Offaly: 77 people.

Westmeath: 70 people.

Cavan/Monaghan: 14 people.

Galway (including Galway City): 238 people.

Mayo: 184 people.

When it came to families specifically, there were 2,609 families living in emergency accommodation across the country.

Of these, 1,474 were single-parent families. The adults in these families totalled to 4,441, with 5,457 being children under the age of 18.