Irish Research Council to host panel discussion on housing crisis for Culture Night in Galway

The Irish Research Council will hold a panel discussion in NUI Galway on Culture Night (20.09.19) from 4pm to 6pm on the topic of the housing and homelessness crisis.

The panel discussion will be chaired by Professor Daniel Carey, who is a member of the Irish Research Council and the Director of NUI Galway’s Moore Institute for Research in the Humanities and Social Studies. The panellists include Professor Niamh Hourigan (Mary Immaculate College), Dr. Rory Hearne (Maynooth University), Dr. Valesca Lima (Maynooth University) and Karen Feeney, Head of Client Services at Galway Simon Community.

Announcing the event, the Director of the Irish Research Council, Peter Brown, said: “Culture Night is an occasion to celebrate the richness of Irish culture, but it also presents an opportunity to look at how we can address societal challenges in a more creative and sustainable way.

“The housing and homelessness crisis is without doubt one of the single biggest challenges facing Irish society at present.  For Culture Night 2019, we have gathered together some of the leading researchers in Ireland with expertise on this topic.  Alongside service-providers from the NGO sector, they will discuss the housing crisis and how it can be fixed.  This will be an interesting and thought-provoking Culture Night event, suited to those who wish to engage with current affairs as part of Culture Night.”

The Irish Research Council’s 2019 Culture Night panel discussion is open to members of the public to attend, free of charge. Further information and (optional) online registration are available at https://bit.ly/2mdFbGe. The event will build on the success of the last three years, when the Council organised other innovative and challenging events to mark the occasion.

The Irish Research Council was launched in 2012.  It is an agency of the Department of Education and Skills, and operates under the aegis of the Higher Education Authority.  The core function of the Council is to support excellent frontier research across all disciplines and all career stages.  It places a particular focus on early-stage career researchers and promotes diverse career opportunities for researchers by partnering with employers.  The Council also has a particular role in supporting research with a societal focus, and has established partnerships across government and civic society.  Further information: www.research.ie, @IrishResearch, #LoveIrishResearch.