Successive Governments in Ireland have had "no will" to solve the homeless crisis, according to an advocate.
It comes as two men died on the streets of Dublin this week.
On Tuesday, Gardaí said a man in his 40s was found dead on Longford Street in the early hours of this morning.
Shortly afterwards, a second man, also in his 40s, was found dead on Leinster Lane near Government Buildings.
They bring the number of deaths of people without a home in the capital to 50 this year.
The number of people homeless in Ireland has begun to rise again, with new figures from the Department of Housing today showing an increase in 81 to the total list in October.
Just over 8,700 people are without a home, and around 2,600 of those are children.
Homeless advocate Glen Gannon is calling for action from the current Government, with freezing temperatures and the COVID-19 pandemic causing even more hardship for people living on the streets.
Glen, who owned a shop in Dublin city centre, suffered financial problems which resulted in him losing the shop, his marriage breaking down and subsequently becoming homeless.
He told Lunchtime Live: "I was three years on the streets which is like 300 years
"It's a terrible terrible hell that people who are now living on the streets are going through.
"Imagine tonight that you don't have anywhere to go to, put yourself into a laneway at three in the morning and every noise, every sound, you jump, because you think it's someone coming to kill you because your life is literally hanging by a thread in laneways.
"You could be attacked by marauding gangs, you could be killed where you like, you could be burned to death in a sleeping bag.
"It's a dreadful thing to be fighting that, to be fighting your addictions, to be fighting the cold, to be fighting loneliness.
"Now add on top of that the pandemic, there are no people around to save you, that's the hell that people live in who are homeless."
Glen said Irish people are generally very generous and would pass some money to homeless people when passing by.
However, due to COVID-19, the streets of towns and cities are empty.
Lunchtime Live
'No will' in Government
He added there is "no will" among this Government or previous ones to fix the homelessness crisis, and if there was the problem could be solved.
He said: "With the best will in the world, the Government is formed...they'll tell us what they're going to do, some other group are in and they throw out the baby with the bathwater and it's a vicious cycle and a vicious circle."
Glen said that no one is going to get on top of the problem until there are "radical changes".
He added that there are thousands of homeless families, many of whom are placed in hotels, and this system creates a "black hole" for funding without actually addressing the issue.
He said: "The last lockdown, the Taoiseach Leo Varadkar took everyone off the streets, but this lockdown they haven't taken everyone off the streets.
"I'm appealing to Micheál Martin to take everybody off the streets, I don't care how much it costs.
"We've had an epidemic in Ireland for four decades and it's called homelessness.
Glen called on Mr Martin to form an action group of people "on the coal face" of homelessness and homeless services nationwide.
He said the focus needs to be on action in order to facilitate change, including the provision of social housing.
