The Labour party is calling for urgent measures to be taken to bring vacant properties back into use in Ireland.

Senator Kevin Humphreys made the call after figures revealed over 8,000 people as homeless inclusive of almost 3,000 children.

He said: "With the level of homelessness continuing to rise we need urgent measures to bring more properties back into use.

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"It has been estimated than anywhere between 2,500 and 6,000 apartments and houses in Dublin are now marketed as full time, short term lets through platforms like AirBnB.

"It is time that this was tackled through planning enforcement to put them back into use for families.

"It's not acceptable that thousands of possible homes in our capital city are used for tourists over families.

"There are also tens of thousands of vacant properties and we still have no concrete measures or strategy from the Government to address this."

(CD/LM)