The Raise the Roof Housing campaign recently held the last in a series of regional discussions on the housing crisis in Maynooth, County Kildare.
Over the past weeks, the nationwide meetings heard from housing experts, trade unions, political parties, and people directly affected by the crisis.
Dr.Rory Hearne of Maynooth University said ‘the housing crisis results from three decades of dominant policy thinking in Ireland that social housing was a failed approach and the market is the best way to deliver housing. Now we are dealing with an unprecedented housing and homelessness crisis as the Government and state scramble to try to increase social and affordable housing provision.
However, the current measures are still insufficient as the policy is still largely focused on subsidising and promoting the private housing market rather than, for example, funding local authorities adequately to provide housing, using our public land banks for social and affordable housing, and setting up a state construction and retrofit company’.
Dr.Hearne said ‘the crisis will continue to spiral out of control unless we see a transformative change in housing policy and treat housing as a human right, holding a referendum and putting the right to housing as a guiding framework for our housing system in the Constitution’.
Kelly Anne Byrne, another contributor, said she had lived in foster care, but at 16 when she got pregnant she experienced homelessness. ‘I never felt secure until I got my forever home and since I have a permanent home, my children and I have thrived. All children deserve a safe place they can call home. She said there are over 3,000 children without that security and I am here to stand up and fight for them’ she said.
Macdara Doyle of ICTU, and Raise the Roof Coordinator said ‘This is one of a series of meetings across the country designed to build support for Raise the Roof and for the radical change in housing policy that we need to see. A core part of that change is the urgent need to place affordability at the heart of housing policy and to make it the key, overarching goal, as opposed to a simple focus on the number of new homes.’
