About Us
Mercy Law Resource Centre’s vision is of a society where each individual lives in dignity and enjoys equal rights, in particular the right to a home, which is fundamental to each human being. MLRC’s vision is also of a society where every individual enjoys equal access to justice and legal recourse in order to vindicate those rights.
Welcome to Mercy Law
Mercy Law Resource Centre (MLRC) is an independent law centre, registered charity and company limited by guarantee which provides free legal advice and representation to people who are homeless or at risk of becoming homeless in the areas of social housing and related social welfare law. The Centre also seeks to advocate change in laws, policies and attitudes which unduly and adversely impact its client group. For more information on our governance, please click here.
Our Services
MLRC provides four key services:
- Free legal advice clinics for people who are homeless or facing homelessness in relation to social housing and related social welfare law
- Legal representation in respect of such issues where considered appropriate
- Legal support and training for organisations working in the field of homelessness
- Policy work to advocate changes to laws, policies and attitudes that are particularly harsh for people facing homelessness
Our Mission
To provide free, accessible legal advice and representation to those who are homeless or at risk of homelessness
We will remain ‘low threshold’ to access, providing some level of assistance to all callers in line with our agreed prioritisation principles.
We will treat all callers with respect and compassion. Where we cannot provide support, we will endeavour to refer callers to appropriate services.
To drive legal and policy change to address injustices in social housing and homeless law
We will draw from our casework to develop policy and law reform positions.
We will work collaboratively and in partnership to effect legal and policy change.
We will use our expertise and unique perspective to shine a light on injustices experienced by our clients.
To build social housing and homeless law expertise across the sector
We will provide regular training sessions to increase capability across the social housing and homeless law sector, including on request
in local authorities.
We will help to equip peer organisations with the expertise to identify sub-standard decision making in housing matters and to know where legal support should be sought.
We will increase awareness of the rights of those who are homeless or at risk of homelessness through informative publications.
The Need For Our Service
“Poor Law” (e.g. housing and social welfare law) is not catered for by either the private sector or the State legal aid system. The legal assistance which is available is often limited to advice only and is not always accessible to our clients. Homeless persons are on the extreme margins of society and have additional hurdles in accessing legal services, rights and entitlements. A further issue is that the services available are often fragmented ignoring the cluster of problems which our client group often experience i.e. other legal and non-legal problems. Our experience has shown that homelessness is not an isolated issue and our client group face a number of other difficulties, including: Marital/ Family Breakdown; Domestic Violence; Mental Health; Drug / Alcohol Addiction; Immigration issues; Leaving Prison and Trafficking/ Prostitution.
Our Beginnings
At first sight, ‘Law’ and ‘Mercy’ appear to have little to do with each other. Mercy Law Resource Centre was born out of a desire to bring together these two differing worlds in the hope that, as law becomes ever more dominant and influential in our society, it would be illuminated and resourced by the values of compassion and justice for all, including the poor.
An opportunity to do just this arose when a lawyer, Michele O Kelly, joined the Sisters of Mercy. With the encouragement of the Mercy leadership team, first under Sr. Helena O’Donoghue and then under Sr. Peggy Collins, the idea was conceived, not only of using law to advocate on behalf of those who are most marginalised and in need, but also of ‘doing law’ differently i.e. in a way that was genuinely accessible and of real help to the lives of those on the margins of society.
In preparation for this goal, consultations were held in 2008 by Sr. Michele O’Kelly and Sr. Anne Doyle with a number of interest groups in order to determine where the greatest need was for the type of service the Sisters of Mercy were seeking to provide and how it would best be provided. From these consultations, it emerged that the group most in need were people who are homeless or at risk of homelessness; which included those struggling with issues linked to homelessness such as addiction, mental illness, leaving prison and relationship breakdown.
With financial support from the Sisters of Mercy, a Law Centre was set up to provide legal services to this group. It was staffed by one solicitor (Michele O Kelly) and one administrator (Caitriona O’Hara) and it operated out of a room kindly provided by Sophia Housing, appropriately on the grounds of what used to be the old Mercy convent in Cork St. Incorporation as a company took place in May 2009 and charitable status was granted in June 2009.
From the outset, advice clinics were provided in homeless hostels (initially Crosscare, Charlemont Street and St. Vincent De Paul Hostel, Back Lane) and close links were developed with organisations working with those who are homeless. In this way, MLRC sought to make the service accessible and of real help to the people it wanted to serve. In addition, a befriending service was set up whereby volunteers could befriend and accompany clients of the Centre, through their journey through the legal system. A training programme was developed with the help of the Women’s Therapy Centre and eight befrienders began in the autumn of 2009. In 2024, the befriending service was discontinued as MLRC focused on making its services more accessible. It now offers a flexible, hybrid approach, giving clients real choice in how they receive services. Key client documents are written in Plain English, with translations and translation services available when practicable or necessary.
In these distinctive ways, the aspirations with which the Centre was founded began to take concrete shape a free, quality and holistic legal service to people most in need.
