A Director of services for homeless people is to be appointed by the Eastern Regional Health Authority, the Minister for Health and Children announced last night.
Mr Martin made the announcement on the Prime time programme on RTE where he said the services meant to help homeless children had failed them.
The programme included interviews with homeless children in Dublin, including the 16-year-old girl whose father was jailed for raping and torturing her and her mother.
The Northern Area Health Board says it has found permanent accommodation for her and her brother.
The Minister said a solution had to include a greater say for frontline childcare workers in how money was spent and services organised for homeless children.
Dr Eoin O'Sullivan, of the Children's Research Centre in Trinity College Dublin, said Mr Martin was the first Minister to acknowledge that services were failing homeless children.
However, Father Peter McVerry, who highlighted the case of the 16-year-old, said he was disappointed that the Minister was unwilling to set up a body, independent of the Eastern Regional Health Authority, to deal with youth homelessness.
A spokeswoman for the ERHA said last night, however, that co-ordinating services for children was a core function of the authority.