The housing organisation Threshold has called for a rethink of the Government's housing strategy, one which would guarantee the rights of the vulnerable and disadvantaged.
If the Government failed to provide the homeless with acceptable housing they should have the right to take it to court, according to the director of Threshold, Mr Kieran Murphy.
On RTÉ Radio One's News at One yesterday, Mr Murphy said there was a need for a rights-based approach to housing because people who were vulnerable within the housing system, particularly those on low incomes, were losing faith in the ability of the Government to address their concerns.
He said that by guaranteeing a person's right to housing the State would be demonstrating its "clear political commitment to once and for all solve the housing crisis".
Mr Murphy said the needs of the 50,000 households on waiting lists for local authority housing and the estimated 5,000 homeless people in Ireland should be placed at the centre of the Government's social housing programme.
"We've seen a deterioration in their situation over the last five years," he added, "and the likelihood is that it will deteriorate even further over the next five years.
"Giving a legislative right to somebody is really just the first stage in it. The significant benefit is that over time, we will see a fundamental rethink about how we provide social housing in this country."
He accepted, however, that this would require more spending by the Government and would expose it to the risk of litigation.
Mr Murphy criticised the Government's failure to honour its agreement to implement the 10- year-old UN Convention on Social Economic and Cultural Rights, which includes the right to housing.
"When the Irish State signed up to that convention they undertook at an international level to progressively implement those rights," he said.
"Now as recently as a month ago the Irish Government reported on their progress in implementing those rights and they got their knuckles rapped and were chastised by the UN committee for their failure to progressively implement those rights."