The man who discovered the tragic death of a rough sleeper has said he knew something was wrong after seeing the man sitting in exactly the same position twice in a couple of hours.

"Me and a friend were walking to the casino and passed the chap in the lane in Temple Bar at around 11pm," he said.

They had initially presumed the man was sleeping.

"We walked back across at 2am and saw the same fella sitting in the same place in between two bins.

"As soon as I checked his pulse it was cold," he added.

The man was sitting still, wearing a tracksuit and had no sleeping bag.

The pair ran around to a nearby hotel looking for help, and said a dutch women with fluent English, was a medic and ran back around with them.

The deceased man, who has not been named, was discovered in Adair Lane in Dublin's Temple Bar at around 2am.

He was rushed to hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

Dublin City Councillor Christy Burke told Independent.ie: "The man who found him told me that he was walking passed the lane with a friend at around 11pm when he saw the man lying against the wall.

"He didn't have a sleeping bag but he said that he looked like he was asleep.

"When they were coming back the same way at 2am they noticed the man in the exact same position, so he went to take a pulse and he couldn't find one.

"They called an ambulance but he was pronounced dead and the doctors said that the man would have been dead for a few hours before he was found.

"The man who found him is understandably really upset and we have offered him counselling.

"He has been saying that if he hadn't checked then that man might have been dead there overnight and nobody would have found him until the morning."

A Garda spokesman said: "Gardaí are investigating the sudden death of a man at Adair Lane, Dublin 2. He is yet to be identified.

"The incident is not being treated as suspicious at this time."

Mr Burke said that Inner City Helping Homeless counted 150 people on the streets of Dublin last night - 130 men and 20 women.

Online Editors