A new winter night café is to open for homeless people across Dublin.

The facility is a collaboration between Inner City Helping Homeless (ICHH) and the Mendicity Institute.

The night service will be run in the Mendicity Institute, extending their day offering to a night café.

It will offer a safe 'indoor' space for those sleeping rough and who are booking accommodation regularly through CPS, or where placements are frequently breaking down.

The service will also give service users access to hand washing, showers and sanitising stations to keep their hands clean as per public health guidelines.

Support and information will be available to those attending, with follow-up from both ICHH and Mendicity.

It is hoped that access to the night service will be promoted through ICHH Outreach and those currently using Mendicity Day Services.

A primary healthcare clinic will also be operated on site by SafetyNet.

The service will be piloted from October 21st from 4.30pm to 8.30pm.

It will also run for November, December and January 2021 at Mendicity, 9 Island Street, Usher's Island in Dublin 8.

ICHH CEO Anthony Flynn said: "This collaboration is unique in the sense that primarily no evening services of this type are available through the Cold Weather Initiative.

"Teams from Mendicity, ICHH and SafetyNet will work to support some of the most vulnerable, mainly those who would be finding it difficult to find a bed allocation or access appropriate services.

"Winter has crept in we have seen no Cold Weather Initiative activated by the DRHE and frontline services on the ground are responding to that to ensure that through these exceptional times service level provisions are maintained".