Religious body calls for laws to punish State’s failures
The Conference of Religious in Ireland (CORI) also called for a law confining land rezoning to property owned by local authorities.
CORI said this would end speculation by developers and free up tracts of land which could be used for badly needed social housing.
In a submission to the All-Party Oireachtas Committee on the Constitution, CORI said the right to housing should be enshrined in the Constitution.
Furthermore, it said that this right should be made “justifiable” - ie, capable of being vindicated under the law.
CORI spokesman Fr Seán Healy said there should be “a legal requirement” on each incoming Government to set concrete targets on social, economic and cultural rights enshrined in the Constitution.
These rights would include:
sufficient income to live life with dignity
meaningful work
appropriate accommodation
relevant education
essential healthcare
cultural respect
real participation
He said these rights would be set out in legislation, with specific time- frames for their implementation.
“Failure to achieve these targets would be justiciable on a class-action or similar basis but not on the basis of every individual bringing their particular case to court.”
He added: “If the targets were not honoured, the Government would be answerable in a court for their failure to meet the target they themselves had set.”
He said the only acceptable defence would be for the Government to prove the economic situation had changed so much that it could not meet the targets.
“If that could not be demonstrated, then the Government would be legally obliged to implement its own target.”
Fr Healy pointed out there were 48,413 households on local authority housing waiting lists.
He said this was expected to increase to 54,688 households by the close of this year.
In its submission, CORI also called for legislation to be introduced whereby land would have to be in local authority hands before it could be rezoned.
In this way, the massive increase in value of the land, when rezoned from agricultural to residential, would fall to the local authority and not to land developers.
“The profit from this process should then be targeted on addressing the ongoing social housing problems,” he said.
