Right to housing ‘should be enshrined’

THE Constitution should be changed to enshrine properly the right to housing and force the Government to be accountable to its citizens and public bodies, an Oireachtas committee heard yesterday.

Addressing the All-Party Oireachtas Committee on the Constitution, the Simon Communities of Ireland and the Irish Council for Civil Liberties (ICCL) said the only way to guarantee an end to homelessness was through a constitutional guarantee.

Simon Communities social policy and research coordinator Noeleen Hartigan, said housing needed to be enshrined as a right if Ireland’s growing problem of homelessness was to be turned around.