Focus Ireland, an organisation which works with the homeless, has called on the new Minister for Health, Mr Cowen, to follow through quickly on the Government's commitment to implement the Child Care Act.
Sister Stanislaus, its president, said many children and young people were ending up on the streets and that the services provided for them were "hopelessly inadequate".
She said: "Young people are going to Garda stations, waiting there for the out-of-hours social worker, and the absence of adequate emergency accommodation in Dublin means that those children have no proper place to sleep at night."