The Christmas Bonus is being paid out to over 1.2 million social welfare recipients this week at a total cost of €219 million euro.

Payments will be made to pensioners, people with disabilities, carers, lone parents, long-term unemployed people and many other recipients.

Some of the homeless will be among them.

Dermot Kirwan is a volunteer with the Morning Star Hostel in Dublin's North Inner City. He says the cost of being homeless is greater than you might think, and the Christmas bonus can literally be a life-saver.

'Being on the streets during the day is a very expensive way of living. You can't cook your own food, you have to buy cooked food'