After all, is every 24 year old who wants to live away from the family home to be given a constitutional right to have a new home or accommodation provided by a State which recently abolished bedsits? Or are we talking about a general constitutional duty on the State to ensure that there is an adequate combined supply of social, affordable and privately owned and/or rented accommodation to meet the foreseeable demands of the...
The problem is not the law – statutory or constitutional. The problem lies in the pitiful failure of both the executive and legislative arms of the State to deal competently with the massive shortage of housing in a rapidly growing population. Legal duties and powers of housing authorities to provide directly and by planning for the needs of the people are subject to the vice-like grip on local government exercised by the Department of Housing which is supposedly accountable to the Dáil.
Is it naive to expect that a shortly-to-be appointed chief executive of Dublin City Council will show greater interest and application in the statutory duties of the council as a housing authority as his or her outgoing predecessor applied to cycle lane provision or white-water rafting? Will the council address the city’s chronic dereliction and underutilisation of land and buildings for housing?