Sinn Féin declares support for referendum on making housing a constitutional right in Ireland
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Sinn Féin declares support for referendum on making housing a constitutional right in Ireland

SINN Féin has publicly backed a proposal to hold a referendum on making housing a constitutional right.

Prior to the Covid-19 pandemic, Ireland's housing crisis was a major talking point, and a hot button issue during the 2020 general election back in February.

Sinn Féin described the crisis as a "tragedy" and the party is calling for the issue to be resolved swiftly.

"The housing crisis is not just in relation to unfortunately people who are sleeping in the streets or in shelters or emergency accommodation," said Sinn Féin TD Thomas Gould.

"You have families, three generations of families in the one house, people sleeping on couches.

"You have families who have broken up with the mother and the kids in one house and the father maybe on his own or with some with kids in his parents' house, and it's a tragedy at the moment that needs to be resolved."

They're pushing for a referendum on the subject within the year.

Fianna Fáil TD Jennifer Murnane O'Connor said she agrees with Sinn Féin's analysis, and added that the situation needed to be resolved as soon as possible.

"People are coming to us with families, I've single people coming to me, we've no single housing, so I believe that this needs to happen, I think we can't leave it any longer," she said.

At the beginning of the year, it was estimated that over 10,000 people in Ireland were either living on the streets or in emergency accommodation.