Vulnerable ‘must go to law’ to secure housing rights

Systemic legal failings in the operation of homelessness supports in Ireland are exacerbating already challenging circumstances, according to Family Homelessness and the Law: Current challenges and recommendations for reform.

The report by Mercy Law Resource Centre, funded by Community Foundation Ireland, draws on legal analysis and case studies to illustrate recurring administrative and legal issues affecting families in emergency accommodation.

Speaking at the launch (14 April), managing solicitor Paul Dornan of Mercy Law said the report was based on three legal-advice clinics (between November 2024 and October 2025) for 37 homeless families, including 82 homeless children. 

Human stories

Stating that the denial of rights was the very definition of injustice, the solicitor said: “This report finds multiple examples where the rights of people and family are put to one side in favour of misguided, misinformed and even sometimes illegal bureaucracy.”

She also highlighted that “the national crisis that is domestic violence” was a significant contributor to homelessness and was a factor in 16 of the 37 cases in the report.

“What is particularly shocking is an apparent expectation that women and children completing a stay in a refuge or a place of shelter should consider returning to the violent home. Once again, bureaucracy is given more weight than that of real-life dangers and threats,” Griffith said.

Ombudsman for Children Dr Niall Muldoon said that the report revealed “very worrying legal issues”.

In his analysis, he said: “We know that the housing crisis is having a disproportionate effect on children, and that current policy and practices are not recognising children as individuals who have rights.”

The clinical psychologist referenced evidence that children in emergency accommodation experienced feelings of being “abandoned, stigmatised, scared, and lonely”.

“We can see a range of rights violations in regard to the children of those families, under the UNCRC,” he said.

Best interests

He supported proposals to amend the Housing Act 1988 to require explicit consideration of the best interests of the child and respect for family life.

Dr Muldoon noted that core administrative law requirements – such as the duty to give reasons, ensure factual accuracy, and act within legal powers – were not consistently applied, and highlighted significant inconsistency across the system, with “30-plus local authorities doing different things”, which reflected reliance on informal or non-statutory approaches, rather than binding legal standards.

The Ombudsman also highlighted structural gaps in legal protection, particularly the “absence of an adequate statutory provision of legal aid” in housing and homelessness matters, which he described as serious in the absence of any constitutional or statutory right to housing. 

Unacceptable

He noted that the Civil Legal Aid Act 1995 excluded disputes concerning “rights and interests in or over land” and did not extend to quasi-judicial bodies such as the Residential Tenancies Board, leaving families reliant on independent law centres, which he described as “a clearly unacceptable situation”. 

Solicitors Erika Hayes and Kate Heffernan presented case studies illustrating how these systemic issues operated in practice, noting at the outset the prevalence of domestic violence across their caseloads. 

Kate Heffernan added that such cases frequently exposed the most acute failures in the system.

A recurring issue is the unlawful application of the ‘local connection’ test in homelessness assessments.

Hayes explained that this requirement, relevant only to social housing allocation, was “completely irrelevant” in cases where individuals were fleeing domestic violence. 

Nevertheless, it is frequently relied upon to refuse emergency accommodation, including in circumstances where applicants have been directed back to areas where there is a known risk to life. 

She said that this practice was inconsistent with obligations under the Housing Act 1988 and Department of Housing guidance requiring immediate provision of emergency accommodation.

Core

Heffernan added that, while housing officers generally understood the core statutory framework, there was often limited engagement with broader legal obligations, including human-rights standards under the Istanbul Convention.

Further case studies illustrated difficulties in the application of disability law. 

Hayes noted that local authorities frequently applied the homelessness test in isolation, without proper regard to duties under the Equal Status Act 2000 or the public-sector equality duty under the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission Act 2014, resulting in accommodation that was unsuitable for children with disabilities and without meaningful assessment of individual needs.

The report also addressed the use of accommodation “vouchers”, whereby families were required to source their own temporary accommodation. 

Acute crisis

Heffernan described this as placing “an enormous stress” on families in already acute crisis situations and argued that it did not represent a proper exercise of powers under section 10 of the Housing Act 1988, particularly given that such arrangements were often impractical or unusable.

Overall, the solicitors concluded, the case studies demonstrated systemic issues: 

Entitlements

• Vulnerable applicants are often required to threaten or initiate legal proceedings to secure entitlements that should have been provided as a matter of course.

  The report’s recommendations are:

  • Provide comprehensive training to local-authority homeless service staff on administrative, constitutional, and human-rights law principles governing discretionary decision-making,
  • Train local-authority staff on the Public Sector Equality and Human Rights Duty, with emphasis on rights relevant to homelessness and social-housing assessments,
  • Amend the Housing Act 1988 to require housing authorities to consider the best interests of the child and respect for family life in homeless decisions,
  • Withdraw the October 2025 CCMA ‘Protocol for Homeless Presentations between Local Authorities’ due to concerns about undermining the rule of law and harming vulnerable groups,
  • Amend section 2 of the Housing Act 1988 so that victims of domestic violence and their children are not considered to have alternative accommodation if they cannot safely return home,
  • Issue updated Department of Justice guidance on emergency accommodation and housing supports for victims of domestic violence, with mandatory training for local authorities,
  • Introduce a statutory requirement for local authorities to assess the suitability and accessibility of emergency accommodation at the point of homeless assessment, and
  • End the practice of splitting families across multiple emergency-accommodation placements and stop issuing accommodation vouchers, replacing them with direct booking of placements by local authorities.