In a lengthy discussion on housing and planning, councillors expressed their anger and frustration at the situation.
The first issue raised related to a B&B accommodation in Courtown, which - councillors heard at the county council meeting the previous day - has not been used since September 2019.
Cllr Diarmuid Devereux said that, while the accomodation may be in place, the lack of out of hours support was a serious issue. That accommodation may be there physically but we have been told that there would be no out of hours service for an emergency that arises over the Christmas. We ve got to do something about that, even if we as councillors provide the service ourselves. People who find themselves threatened with serious injury or death, as a result of homelessness over a period of alcohol abuse that goes on at that time of the year, we need to make sure that we can react and I don t believe that passing that on to the shoulders of An Garda Siochana is adequate, he said.