Speakers & Moderators

Chairperson for the Event – Professor Martin Hogg, Head of Law School NUI Galway 

Professor Martin Hogg has taken up the roll in as Head of the School of Law in NUI Galway – joining us from the University of Edinburgh where he served as the Head of School and Dean of Law.

Noelle O’Connell, CEO European Movement 

Noelle has been the CEO of the European Movement since April 2011 and is Vice-President of the board of the European Movement International. Noelle is also the National Citizens Representative for Ireland on the Conference for the Future of Europe Plenary meetings at the European Parliament. 

Dr. Alison Gilliland, Lord Mayor of Dublin

Dr Alison Gilliland was elected as the 353^rd Lord Mayor of Dublin in June 2021 and has a wealth of expertise in housing issues, having been Chairperson of Dublin City Councils Strategic Policy Committee on Housing. Dr Gilliland has also served on the European Union Committee of the Region Commission for Citizenship, Governance, Institutional and External Affairs. 

Kim Van Sparrentak, MEP

Kim van Sparrentak is a Dutch Member of the European Parliament for the Greens/EFA group. Kim acted as Rapporteur steering through the European Parliament in 2021 – the historical and groundbreaking report “Access to Decent and Affordable Housing for All” which sets out a clear pathway for the European Union to address the key housing issues of our time, including ending homelessness in Europe by 2030.

Sharon Donnery, Deputy Governor Central Bank

Sharon was appointed Deputy Governor of the Central Bank of Ireland on 1 March 2016 and is the Governor's Alternate on the Governing Council of the European Central Bank (ECB). She was previously a member of the European Systemic Risk Board (ESRB) and Alternate Member of the Supervisory Board of the Single Supervisory Mechanism (SSM). She has chaired a number of European Committees including being Chair of the ECB High Level Group on Non-Performing Loans (NPLs), Chair of the European Banking Authority's (EBA) Consumer Protection Group and Vice-Chair of the EBA Standing Committee on Consumer Protection and Financial Innovation. In 2020, she was appointed as an Adjunct Professor of Economics in Trinity College Dublin.

Michaela Kauer, City of Vienna 

Michaela Kauer is the Director of the Brussels Liaison Office of the City of Vienna, where she is best known for her work on explaining and promoting the iconic Vienna Model of housing. Michaela is Member of Executive Committee of EUROCITIES and its working group on the EU Urban Agenda. She has also served as a Member of the Vienna Parliamentary Assembly, and has designed an awareness campaign on "making women visible" - contributing to gender equality rules for the Vienna City administration, and implementation of gender mainstreaming and gender budgeting.

Stanislas Jourdan, Positive Money Europe 

Stanislas Jourdan is the executive director of the Brussels based NGO - Positive Money Europe, where he leads advocacy campaigns and research on the European Central Bank and monetary policy. Previously, as a journalist Stan covered the euro financial crisis and has also written extensively on money creation. He facilitates regular consultations between the ECB and civil society across Europe.

Professor Padraic Kenna, NUI Galway

Professor Padraic Kenna, who is the organiser of this Event, lectures on housing and property law at NUI Galway, and publishes and presents widely on housing law, rights and policy particularly in the EU context. He established the Centre for Housing Law, Rights and Policy which has published a set of Briefings integrating housing rights in the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights into the EU Economic Governance framework.

Dr Rory Hearne, NUI Maynooth

Dr Rory Hearne is Assistant Professor in Social Policy at NUI Maynooth. His book  Housing Shock: Ireland's housing crisis & how to solve it in 2020, contextualises the Irish housing crisis within the broader global housing situation. Rory is a regular contributor to debates on the right to housing, the financialisation of housing, spatial disadvantage, economic inequality, neoliberalism and the welfare state, social justice and social movements. 

Freek Spinnewijn, FEANTSA

Freek Spinnewijn is the Director of FEANTSA, the European Federation of National Organisations working on homelessness and social exclusion since 2001.  Freek works closely with the European Union institutions in developing policies to address and prevent homelessness across the Union. He contributed to the launch of the European Platform on Combatting Homelessness in June 2021. Freek is vice-president of the European Public Health Alliance, and sits on the Board of the European Anti-Poverty Network and Social Services Europe. He was previously Director of the European Federation of Elderly Organisations.

Dara Turnbull, Housing Europe

Bob Jordan, The Housing Agency

Bob Jordan is the CEO of the Housing Agency – the government body which provide the services for, and on behalf of, the Minister of Housing, Local Government and Heritage, and each local authority in the performance of their functions under the Housing Acts. These services include Housing Research and Analysis, Housing Supply Supports and Advice, Local Authority Services, Approved Housing Body Services, Mortgage Supports, Acquisitions of housing, Housing Projects and Procurement Services, Pyrite Remediation and Regulation of Approved Housing Bodies. A former Ministerial Adviser and Director of Housing First, Bob has been a coordinator of a Working Group of European Network of Housing researchers for many years. 

Barbara Steenbergen, International Union of Tenants

Barbara Steenbergen is the head of the International Union of Tenants EU liaison office, which advocates for tenants and affordable rental housing. She is responsible for the political relations and representation of the interest of the European tenant associations towards the EU institutions including the EU Parliament and the EU Council.

Dr Nuria Lambea-Llop, UNESCO Housing Chair

Dr Nuria Lambea-Llop is a postdoctoral researcher at the UNESCO Housing Chair, at the University Rovira i Virgili (URV) (Spain), where she is a specialist in social housing governance, intermediate tenures and tourist dwellings in the EU. Nuria was one of the authors of the Report – Concrete Actions for Social and Affordable Housing in the EU,  published by the Foundation for European Progressive Studies (FEPS) in 2021.

Dr. Áine Sperrin, NUI Galway

Dr Áine Sperrin is a Post-Doctoral Researcher with the Re(al) Productive Justice at the Centre for Disability Law and Policy in NUI Galway, where she lectures on rights for persons with disabilities, including the right to Independent Living. Áine has worked with a variety of Irish and International human rights organisations. Áine is Chair of the Sibéal Feminist and Gender Studies Network, a Board Member of Aiseanna Tacaíochta and the Chair of Ability West Human Rights Committee. 

Professor Marc Roark, Southern University USA

Professor Marc Roark is Professor of Law at the Southern University Law Centre, USA, where he lectures on property and housing law. Marc is also Research Associate Professor at University of Pretoria, and is part of a group of world-wide scholars researching and collaborating on affordable housing issues globally. He is currently working on a second book titled Under-Housed, forthcoming from Cambridge University Press in 2023. Professor Roark is a founding member of the Resilient Property Research Network, a collaborative research network aimed at illuminating the role of property in shaping state resilience around the globe.