"Ad hoc" volunteers feeding rough sleepers and handing out tents can't solve years of "bad behaviour."
That is according to the director of the Dublin Region Homeless Executive who says unofficial groups aren't helping people in the long run.
Eileen Gleeson says they would not be camping on the banks of the Royal Canal if volunteers weren't "going down there to feed them".
And she says they are not being linked into services when they are being helped by people trying to do the right thing.
She said: "When somebody becomes homeless it doesn't happen overnight, it takes years of bad behaviour probably and it takes as long again to work them back into the system."