The first delegation of Fórsa activists will be meeting at 12.30 at the union’s offices at Nerney’s Court in Dublin to collect flags and banners, and will make their way to Parnell Square at 12.45.

Ireland today has never been wealthier. However, a younger generation is effectively locked out of access to housing, while an older generation of private renters face huge uncertainty in retirement.

Hotels house families who are homeless, while too many private homes are on short-term let to visiting tourists, while housing for refugees and asylum seekers is becoming an increasingly fraught issue.

The Government’s Housing for All policy is falling far short of meeting the housing needs of our population, and ICTU’s general secretary Owen Reidy last week confirmed that the housing crisis is the most important issue on which the trade union movement is currently campaigning, and one of the few that unites almost every strand of society.

That’s why we need your support tomorrow.

We need your voice to strengthen the call for affordable homes and rents that allow households a decent standard of living.

We need your voice to strengthen our call for protection from eviction, security for tenants and high-quality public housing.

And we need you to join the call for a housing system that works for communities, families and individuals, not just for investment funds or developers.

If the Government fails to step up its game, and ensure the provision of homes for working people with progressive, considered and, above all, radically ambitious housing policies, it will open the door to a series of societal failures.

Just this week, caution was sounded by an expert group advising the Government that the protracted housing crisis provides a basis for potential racist tension and confrontation.

The latest employment monitor from recruiter Morgan McKinley says companies based in Dublin are struggling to find employees because of the lack of affordable housing or rental properties.

Employers in towns and city centres, most notably in the hospitality industry, are temporarily shuttering their businesses or closing completely because the staff they would otherwise hire cannot find a place to live.

The successful recruitment of teachers, gardaí and medical staff is significantly below requirements for much the same reason. Generations of well-educated, experienced young workers are weighing up the prospect of leaving the country to ensure that they can start an independent life.

The roots of this problem lie in the gradual withdrawal of the State from its interventions in the housing market, the last semblance of which was the affordable housing scheme, which finished just over a decade ago.

Tomorrow we need to send a clear message to Government that its housing policies need to expand, improve, get radical, and serve the needs of everyone who needs a home.

Please join us.

The first delegation of Fórsa activists will be meeting at 12.30 at the union’s offices at Nerney’s Court in Dublin to collect flags and banners, and will make their way to Parnell Square at 12.45.