A huge turnout of almost 200 people came to Dublin's CWU Centre yesterday, 30 January, for a major 'Raise the Roof' conference.

The conference focused on securing a legal right to housing, as well as the need for increased investment in a major programme of public housing.

In her opening remarks, Congress General Secretary Patricia King said: "We grow accustomed to families living in cars and tents, to children being raised in hotel rooms, to lives being wasted and life chances destroyed. We must guard against this danger and guard against those who would attempt to portray the crisis as intractable. That is a lie."

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She added: "The housing emergency is neither a natural disaster, nor an act of God. It has been made entirely by human hands and can be resolved and ended the same way."

The General Secretary said the Congress Charter for Housing rights set out the principle that there should be a "legal right to housing" and that the situation was a national housing emergency that demanded a major public housing construction programme.

A panel of experts including urban design architect Mel Reynolds, Brendan Kenny of Dublin City Council, Tanya Ward of the Children's Rights Alliance, and Síona Cahill of the Union of Students of Ireland addressed the conference supported by the Irish Congress of Trade Unions.

(CM/MH)