Submission on Right to Housing to the Conference on the Referendum on Housing.

There is a significant popular movement for inserting a right to housing into the Irish Constitution, and significant work has been carried out by civil society organisations to prepare a suitable wording. One of the key questions on a constitutional right to housing is whether and how it would be enforced by courts the question of justiciability. Would the courts order a State body to provide housing to any person who invoked the constitutional right? While there has been much written on this question internationally, especially in relation to South Africa which has had such a rights for more than 20 years, it is important to recognise the particular role of courts in Ireland under the Irish Constitution -Bunreacht na hEireann.