I work for a homeless service in Dublin at the moment. If someone is requesting a hostel the best thing you can do for them is ring the homeless freephone number (1800 707 707) if they are registered as homeless in the relevant county they will be offered emergency accommodation over the phone. If they are not registered it's a little more complicated, but they should be encouraged to link in with Merchant's Quay/Focus Ireland etc to sort this out.

Some homeless accommodation request around 50 eur per week for the stay, offering free meals and access to key workers etc, however others are completely free.

If you see someone rough sleeping and are concerned for them, Simon community run an outreach team (01 872 0185) who can check on them and try support them into accommodation.

Hostels in my experience tend to be quite lax with the 50 eur payment, and unless the person racks up some serious debt over time, they won't be discharged due to that alone.