THERE was a massive increase in the number of homeless children in the Mid West over the Christmas period, with the latest figures showing 292 children having spent the holiday season in emergency accommodation, compared to 185 last year.
The numbers of adults without a home has also increased, with official figures from the Department of Housing’s Homeless Report showing there were 686 adults, 586 of those in Limerick, homeless in the last week of December 2025.
The same period in 2024 saw 547 adults homeless in the Mid West, 453 of them in Limerick.
The figures from last November also show there was an increase in homelessness by the end of the year.
Those figures have recorded 674 adults as homeless in the Mid West in that month, 576 of them in Limerick.
In that same month, the figures show there were 179 families in emergency accommodation .
But the number of children in emergency accommodation was slightly higher than December at 302.
Nationally, there were more than 5,000 children homeless for Christmas and more than 11,500 in total in emergency accommodation.
While homeless figures rise, the latest CSO figures reveal a 13 per cent decline in residential completions in the city and county in the last 12 months.
Limerick has fallen to 28th out of 31 local authority areas for housing delivery.
In 2025, only 872 houses were built in Limerick, significantly below the 2,500 to 4,000 units required annually to meet current demand.
The drop makes Limerick one of only eight regions in the country to see a decrease in construction compared to the previous year.