One hundred and twelve new hostel beds; 108 upgraded hostel places; £5 million to provide hostel places for drug and alcohol abusers; more outreach workers. As Bobby Molloy put it, when it comes to tackling homelessness, money won't be a problem.

Changing, and changing radically, the way things are done, however, may prove more complex. And if the changes don't come quickly, the homelessness problem will get worse, says Sister Stanislaus Kennedy, president of the housing charity, Focus Ireland.

Figures published in September by the Government agency, the Homeless Initiative, suggested there were 2,900 homeless adults in Dublin, Kildare and Wicklow and some 5,000 Statewide, double previous estimates.

An estimated 300 people are homeless in Cork city, almost 1,000 are thought to be homeless in Galway city and the problem is said to be getting worse in smaller towns such as Dundalk, Athlone and Waterford.

In the last three years alone, homelessness in the State has doubled, says Sister Stanislaus. The numbers on the housing waiting list have doubled since 1988, she says. Things, clearly, have not been working.

Certainly they have not for Alan (43), whom The Irish Times found begging in Lower Stephen Street last weekend. He said he had had a nervous breakdown five years ago and lost his flat. The worst thing about homelessness, he said, was the isolation.

Nor have they been working for Patrick Kelly (33), husband and father of six who, because of his heroin habit, lost his family and is living in a squalid squat in Dublin's Morningstar Avenue.

They aren't working well either for Brian (14) who at 11 p.m. on Monday night was begging outside Spar in Dame Street.

During the week Sister Stanislaus said there was no excuse for the "continuing horror" of homelessness. "Things are getting worse, and will continue to do so," she said, "if the Government doesn't tackle the situation aggressively."

The Government would probably counter that it is already doing that, and point to the additional hostel places, hostel upgrades and increased outreach workers.

So, too, would Dublin Corporation, where Frank Goodwin, director of its Homeless Policy Unit, recounts a list of initiatives undertaken over the past two years.

Where two years ago the corporation ran just one hostel at Benburb Street, he says, it now runs or leases accommodation for the homeless on the North Circular Road, Blessington Street and Belvedere Road on the north side, as well as at Eustace Street, Ringsend and Whitefriars Street on the south side.

However, homelessness continues to grow, said Mary Higgins, administrative director of the Homeless Initiative, and the reasons for this must be addressed if the flow of people into homelessness is to be cut.

"There has been a group of people that are just so marginalised that they have not been lifted by the rising tide," she said.

In particular, she identifies those who have been discharged from psychiatric institutions into homelessness, who have been released from prison into homelessness, who have been discharged from institutional care into homelessness, and those who have simply slipped through the social net.

"At the moment, with services so centralised and fragmented, they are slipping until they reach the very bottom, which is the streets."

There is then the fact, she says, that the economy is healthy enough that it can support a level of homelessness it couldn't have some years ago. "People who are homeless today would probably have emigrated," she says.

Likening further provision of emergency accommodation as a means of solving homelessness to the building of more prisons as a means of dealing with crime, she says the focus needs to be on identifying those in danger of becoming homeless, on providing appropriate services to the homeless and on moving people out of homelessness permanently.

She has called services to the homeless "inefficient and ineffective".

Other countries' experiences with tackling homelessness have been more effective than ours until now.

As part of its study of street drinking, Under Dublin's Neon, the Centrecare project looked at the Finnish experience. Since 1983 Finland has made the elimination of homelessness a government objective.

Between 1978 and 1998 homelessness there decreased from 20,000 to 9,600. The number of rough sleepers has fallen from 200 in 1985 to just 30 in 1998.

Fundamental to the Finnish strategy, says the study, is the provision of mainstream housing with the necessary supports. Large-scale provision of transitional housing has proved essential.

Positively, Ms Higgins believes the relevant authorities here are "more open than ever" to changing the way things have been done.

While badly-needed hostels continue to be opened there are also moves to open more transitional housing; Dublin Corporation and the Eastern Health Board are seeking premises to open a "wet" hostel for street drinkers (no hostel will tolerate drinking, and so many drinkers prefer to stay on the street in often freezing temperatures) and a hostel where drug-taking would be "reluctantly tolerated"; outreach workers are to begin visiting the homeless in B&B/hostel accommodation with a view to moving them to longer term accommodation; and the EHB is developing a specialised daycare and advice centre for the homeless and has also appointed a general manager with specific responsibility for homelessness.

Sister Stanislaus, while welcoming these, says "The proof of the pudding is in the eating," adding that the current Government is merely finally addressing an issue which Focus Ireland warned, 10 years ago, would reach crisis proportions. "It's in their face now," she said.

"The country is awash with money, and all that's needed is a bit of vision. Surely, in such a country, a home would be a basic constitutional right."