Housing Minister Eoghan Murphy has survived a vote of no confidence in the Dáil.
It was defeated 56 votes to 53 after a lengthy debate last night, avoiding a possible Christmas election.
The Social Democrats called for Murphy to be removed from office for his handling of the housing crisis. Co-leader is Catherine Murphy; "we're asking for you to resign, our society can no longer afford you."
Independent TDs Noel Grealish, Michael Lowry and Denis Naughten voted with the government.
Defence
Minister Eoghan Murphy defended his record during the debate:
"Over 6,000 social housing homes built this year, over 20,000 private homes built this year. 1 in 3 of every home being built this year is for social housing and people say that we're reliant on the market for our solutions, its a nonsense"
He went on to say "next year we'll build more social housing homes than were built in any of the boom years."
Homeless figures
It follows new figures that were released by the Department of Housing yesterday, which show the number of people in emergency accommodation has increased again.
There were 10,514 people in emergency accommodation nationwide in October - 6,688 adults and 3,826 children.
That includes more than 7,300 people in Dublin.
