of the Mercy Law Resource Centre

the principle that follows this, indicates in itself the obligation to follow earlier cases. Case law is made with the future in mind. The final decision is often not solely considering the case at hand – the judge may also think about the implications that the judgment will have for individuals in future generations. Countless times have judges been exceptionally cautious in their decision to prevent such things as a “floodgates” argument from arising in future or make a particular effort to clarify a certain principle with the aim of alleviating future problems. This way, the law can advance gradually along a regulated course. The entire aim is to link new issues being raised with old ones being settled, to use previous case law in constant recognition of what is yet to come in the most equitable method of doing justice for all. This system of certainty, stability and uniformity appears to be an infallible method of incorporating centuries of past decisions into modern society in the pursuit of justice with the long-term playing a pivotal part in their decision-making process. Politics may choose the next election but the law decidedly chooses the next generation. The past is drawn upon in the present to improve the future.

Tasin Islam talks with Rebecca Keatinge, Managing Solicitor of the Mercy Law Resource Centre

What type of services do the MLRC provide?

We are an independent law centre and a registered charity. We provide 5 main services. We provide legal advice for those at risk of homelessness through legal advice clinics and we provide legal representation to those clients that we meet at clinics. We will advocate to local authorities—and bring litigation—if and when needed. We also provide a befriending service. We match our clients to volunteer befrienders to assist them with other supports they may need, whether it’s non-legal and to support them through the process, to be a listening ear. We also work on policy and advocacy. Our main theme is the right to housing which is gathering momentum and we have published a trilogy of reports on the right to housing, the most recent of which looks at the gap of legal protection as it affects children in homelessness. And finally, we provide training and legal services for organisations that are working in the housing and homelessness sector.

What is your role in the organisation?

I am the managing solicitor. I am responsible for the overall management and the smooth running of the services, and of managing the staff. We have three solicitors, myself included, and three support staff, and we have volunteer administrators. We have a very active board and a number of volunteers who also assist in the day-to-day management. I’m also a solicitor so I would have an active number of cases. I attend the clinics and I’m also primarily responsible for the policy work and communications as well.

What do you believe are the causes of rising homelessness in Ireland?

That is a very challenging question! When you look at the flow of homelessness from the year before last, the flow comes predominantly from family breakdowns. Now we see families that are coming to homelessness that is being caused by evictions from the private rented sector. Landlords can serve a lawful termination if they’re selling the property, or they’re doing substantial refurbishment, or they have a family member coming in, and there are other causes. Many of the families we’re meeting have been given notice that is lawful and they come to the MLRC. Similarly, for single people, the flow to homelessness comes from the private rented sector. The root of the problem is the lack of supply in the private rented sector. Exiting homelessness is another challenge when there is no housing available.

Do you think that current tenancy legislation sufficiently protects tenants?

We would like to see a move to a model where there

is security of tenure—because as government policy shifts from social housing to social housing support through the Housing Assistance Payment and greater reliance on that, where there is an absence of security of tenure it doesn’t provide people with a home in any sense. We’ve had families that have entered into the private rented sector and became homeless again and that shows how the private rented sector is failing to meet the needs of that cohort. There needs to be greater security of tenure and there needs to be a tightening up of the effectiveness of the grounds of termination.

Relating to that, what are the types of policy changes you would like to see?

Threshold (a national housing charity) speaks quite clearly and articulately on the changes required in the tenancy legislation. For us, what we’re dealing with this families that can’t access homelessness entitlements, single people who are struggling to access their entitlements, or who are in homelessness accommodations for a long period of time. An issue at the moment is trying to get a time limit put on the length of time that families can be in emergency accommodation, because we see people in hotels and B&Bs for periods of 22 months. There is a lack of transparency as to how you get to that, and we’re dealing with very vulnerable families.

Do the types of emergency accommodation we have in Ireland adversely affect families?

Absolutely. I can say from our own experience that is definitely the case. We would work with medical professionals who would have assess families that we had been working with and documented the detrimental impact homelessness has on families. We’ve been working with a family for 3 years now and the year before last they lived in hotels moving night to night for about 4 months. They got a secure placement in a hotel that was a 90 km round trip from their children’s schools and those children only had a 20% attendance rate of their infant classes— we got a heartbreaking letter from the principal that documented how it had impacted their early learning. We know from for research, especially in the early years, that security and stability of learning can have a positive impact. We’re dealing with a number of families that live in night to night accommodation which is chronically unstable and chronically unsuitable and that’s at the very severe end of the spectrum.

What are the difficulties that have faced the MLRC in the past, and what do you anticipate are going to be difficulties moving on into the future?

In terms of difficulties, you can divide that into two broad categories. In terms of the legal framework, there is no legal right to housing and there is no legal right to shelter. We would have a number of cases in the year before last where we have had families that have been refused emergency accommodation and were sleeping in a tent. One family went to the Garda station and then were subsequently picked up by an NGO. The legislation says the local authority may provide emergency accommodation so there is essentially a discretionary power, and the courts are very deferential to the local authorities and have applied a very high standard of deference. It is up to the local authorities to assess whether somebody is homeless in their opinion, and the courts have been very reluctant to interfere in that. That has been an obstacle to our work—to assert our client’s entitlements for accommodation. We hope to resolve these in the early stage and we don’t jump to litigation. Certainly, the deficiencies in the legal framework with respect to homelessness provisions is an obstacle for us, and the overall absence of a right to housing which is protected in international law but is not protected in domestic legislation, and which is needed to bring about a cultural shift, and a legal shift, so that families and individuals can access entitlements. Secondly, we are an independent law centre, and we are a charity, so we are entirely dependent on funding and donations. We have a staff of three solicitors. The volume of queries we get and as a consequence of the amount of people that come into our offices, we have to be very judicious about what cases we take on. There is a huge need because there is no legal aid for housing and homelessness matters except in very exceptional circumstances. Those are our current challenges and those challenges are probably not going to go away anytime soon.

Finally, is there any way interested students can help with the MLRC?

Donations are always hugely welcome—small, medium or large—we really are grateful for any support we get. There is a tab on our website which is www.mercylaw.ie. We also will be seeking volunteer befrienders in the coming months—we’re just updating our befriender services and updating our befriender training, so anyone interested in befriending services, we would be very interested in hearing from you. We also do take some interns through the course of the year so to people who are interested, we would really welcome you getting in touch.