In the aftermath of a homeless man dying just metres from Leinster House, homeless charities are saying there needs to be immediate action to prevent further deaths, as Ireland faces up to what could be its more severe homeless crisis ever.

CEO of Dublin Simon Community - Sam McGuinness - told the Last Word on Today FM that the homelessness situation has never been so bad and new thinking is required to deal with the increased numbers sleeping rough.

“We now need measures that haven’t been seen before, whether it’s the civil defence or the army or the OPW, we need places that can take a lot of people,” he said.

“The big difficulty in the last while is we now have economic homelessness and the way to avoid that would be to ensure that people don’t end up homeless in the first place and that is prevent people from becoming homeless ,” he said.

The man - who was in his forties - was discovered in a doorway on Molesworth Street at around eight o'clock this morning.

Homelessness charities say they have had contact with the man, who has not been formally been identified. It is understood gardai are still trying to make contact with the man's family.

He is understood to have originally come from Co. Carlow but had been living rough in Dublin.

Homeless campaigner Fr. Peter McVerry believes more people will die on the streets this winter, and says the Government is not taking the homeless crisis seriously.

“We do have a crisis of homelessness.,” he told Newstalk Lunchtime. Mr McVerry went on to say that the homeless are relegated to below livestock in government priorities, as the reaction to foot and mouth outbreak in Kerry would be far more urgent than what has been seen so far in relation to combating the current homeless crisis.

“If we had a foot and mouth disease down in Kerry there would be a crisis cabinet meeting, in fact there would be several cabinet meetings.

“They would announce that money would be no object to solving this problem – but unfortunately cattle and sheep are more important to our economy than homeless people,” Mr McVerry said.