The Raise the Roof Housing campaign has today (May 31) announced plans for a series of regional and national public meetings on the housing crisis, which will take place over the coming weeks.
At a launch event in Dublin, the campaign group announced it would be holding the meetings with a view to building broad public support for solutions to the crisis and alternative policies on housing.
Campaign coordinator Macdara Doyle said: "The policies of successive governments have failed to tackle the crisis and have arguably made it worse. We seem to endlessly repeat the same failed policies and keep expecting different outcomes.
"The State has abandoned its role in direct housing provision and outsourced this to private interests. This policy must be reversed and the State must take a lead role in such provision to ensure we can deliver secure, affordable accommodation for all who need it. We need urgent action of affordability, on delivering genuine security for tenants and the creation of a new legal Right to Housing."
The launch event also heard from Phil Ni Sheaghdha, General Secretary of the INMO and current Vice President of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, and Fr Peter McVerry, SJ.
The series of regional and national public meetings will hear from housing experts, trade unions, political parties, and people directly affected by the crisis.
The Raise the Roof campaign meetings will take place in the Dan Shaw Centre, Navan on June 1; the Tower Hotel, Waterford on June 7; the Strand Hotel, Limerick on June 13; the Mansion House, Dublin on June 21; Siptu Hall, Galway on June 28; the Glenroyal Hotel Maynooth on July 4.
