New figures show a worrying trend as 95 homeless people died in Dublin in 2022 - 23 of whom were in supported temporary accommodation.
Despite the number of homeless deaths decreasing from 115 in 2021 in the Irish capital, the stats are still well above the numbers seen in the previous three years.
Dr. Austin O'Carroll, who works with homeless people in Dublin, said there are many factors to this, but explained that homeless people are much more likely to be the victims of violence while living on the streets.
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Speaking to Newstalk, who accessed the figures under the Freedom of Information Act, Dr. O’Carroll said: "Poverty is associated with things like increased addiction - including alcohol addiction and in particular drug addiction.
"People often enter homelessness as a result of these and these things do cause earlier death."
He went on to say that what happens with homelessness is "these issues can get exacerbated and the way they cause death is alcoholism can cause death through liver failure and drug addiction causes death mainly through overdoses," which he said is a significant cause of death among homeless people.
O'Carroll also said homeless people are more likely to be the victims of violence and car accidents because they are frequently on the streets.
Professor Bill Tormey, a consultant in Beaumont Hospital, said there are other factors involved as well.
"Flu, Covid - all that sort of stuff - they would also kill people even though they go into hostels because they just pass it around among each other in hostels."
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