Ms Aoife Kelly-Desmond:

Something that is important to bear in mind about the right to housing is that while it is a new right for us to recognise in the Constitution, it still fits into an existing constitutional framework, which has a very long history in the State. We have a very strong and robust court system with a lot of respect for the separation of powers. There is no reason why the right to housing would be different to any other right, whether socioeconomic or otherwise, in terms of the courts overstepping their role. When we look at the way the courts have approached the right to education in this country, which is the most comparable right we currently have, they have very much come at it from the perspective of a principle-based approach to pointing out where the State is failing at a high level and leaving it back to the appropriate organs of the State to address how we achieve that right on a practical level. The right to housing should be framed in such a way that it is about the State creating the conditions for the right to be vindicated, not about reframing it as a legal issue. It would very much be the position of Home for Good that it is not a substantial concern and that there is nothing to suggest there would be court overreach. That would be going against the history that we have of how the courts have dealt with constitutional issues up to now.