An ambitious £180 million plan envisages the elimination of long-term homelessness and rough sleeping in Dublin city and county by the end of the decade.
The draft plan, which has been seen by The Irish Times, includes the establishment of a new agency for the homeless, a public awareness campaign, 1,500 long-term housing units and a 24-hour freephone advice and information service.
It will establish a "radical new approach" to the delivery of services to people who are homeless or at risk of being homeless in Dublin, where most of the State's homeless are concentrated.
The Dublin Action Plan on Homelessness covers four local authority areas and is due to be approved by councillors and health boards within weeks. It is expected that, once sanctioned, the plan will be implemented by the end of the month and will operate until 2003.
Some 75 per cent of the State's homeless people are in the Dublin area, with 95 per cent of these in Dublin city. Officials estimate that at any one time there are between 1,300 and 1,400 people in Dublin using emergency accommodation or sleeping rough.
The action plan emphasises consistent quality standards, early intervention and preventive measures and addressing gaps in services for groups such as women and young people.
It includes a detailed strategy to reduce by two-thirds the estimated 275 people sleeping rough in Dublin by 2003.
This will be done by providing specialist accommodation, making existing accommodation more responsive to their needs and improving street outreach services.
The plan says its "vision" is that by 2010 long-term homelessness and the need for people to sleep rough in Dublin will be eliminated.
It acknowledges that this will not be achieved in its three-year time frame, but says its measures will "lay the ground for its achievement, and this will be built on in subsequent plans".
By 2010, it says, "the risk of a person or a family becoming homeless will be minimal due to effective preventive policies and services.
"Where it does occur, homelessness will be short-term, and all people who are homeless will be assisted into appropriate housing and the realisation of their full potential and rights as citizens".
The plan acknowledges that putting its detailed aims into practice will require changing services for the homeless. "It will also require changes to be made in government and other agency policies, to ensure that they do not contribute to or exacerbate homelessness," it says.
Welcoming the plan, a Labour Party councillor, Mr Kevin Humphreys, said it was the first time the homeless crisis was going to be seriously tackled.