The Constitution should be amended to soften the right to
private property to help local authorities tackle Ireland’s housing
shortage, a prominent priest-sociologist has said.
Speaking at the AGM for the County Kildare Centres for the
Unemployed, Fr Micheál Mac Gréil SJ acknowledged Ireland’s success in
emerging from recession, but described the lack of housing and
accommodation in Ireland as “a structural crisis”.
Support
Fr Mac Gréil said the “almost absolute support of the
right of private property in Bunreacht Na hÉireann is an impediment to
our ability to address the housing structural crisis”, arguing that
local authories should be able to municipalise site-land for the
provision of public housing.
Praising those working to tackle Ireland’s homelessness
crisis, he said their work will not succeed without tackling the
structural issue, and called on the government to propose a referendum
“to amend Bunreacht na hÉireann to enable us to put the common good
before the absolute right to private property”.