It's been revealed that the Department of Housing has removed 1606 people from its official homeless figures this year.
They were taken out of the statistics at the request of the Housing Minister, who blamed "categorisation errors".
Eoghan Murphy has been accused of wanting to keep numbers listed as living in emergency accomodation below 10,000.
Without the re-categorisation, the number of people temporarily living in hotels and B&Bs last month would have stood at 11,133.
According to the latest statistics, the number of people living in emergency accommodation fell by 364 last month.
9,527 people, including almost 3,700 children, were temporarily living in hotels and B&Bs in August.
The Housing Minister says a number of categorisation errors identified earlier this year have now been corrected.
Eoghan Murphy said “earlier this year a number of categorisation errors were identified and corrected in the March and April reports".
"These had involved the categorisation of individuals in houses and apartments owned or leased by the local authorities or Approved Housing Bodies as being in emergency accommodation".
The Minister said a subsequent investigation revealed more local authorities had been categorising houses and apartments as emergency accommodation.
Eoghan Murphy said he is "now satisfied" that his department's report "correctly identifies the families and individuals who are in emergency accommodation".
One homeless charity said it has "major concerns" over the removal of so many people.
Inner City Helping Homeless said that while those affected "might be currently in houses and apartments owned or leased by Local Authorities or Approved Housing Bodies", they have "no security of tenure".
