Ms Maeve Regan:

If the job is being done adequately by the Government and by the Oireachtas, then there is no problem. However, a healthy society has separation of powers where each body keeps a check on the other It is important, as a last resort, to have some oversight where the job is not being done properly. This notion is premised on the idea that the right to housing is a fundamental right. Professor Drudy said that housing was a fundamental need and the right to housing a fundamental right. Perhaps the homelessness crisis is making us see that this is not about money but shelter, home and security. This is recognised as a fundamental right in international human rights law, so it would sit as comfortably within the Constitution as the right to education.

Tomorrow, Ireland is undergoing its periodic UN review and the Minister for Justice and Equality, Deputy Frances Fitzgerald, is in Geneva for it. One of the big issues being raised by the missions there is what is happening in Ireland in regard to homelessness. They want to hear what the State is doing because it is considered to be a breach of the right to housing as a fundamental right. It is recognised as fundamental in the human rights structure.

It is absolutely true that every right has to be balanced with other rights within society. There has been a lot of discussion in this committee on the right to property under Article 43.2 of the Constitution. The rights to property are very well enshrined in the Constitution but they relate to ownership of property and we have no counterbalancing right for any other form of home, but that is what the right to housing is about. It is about home, not simply property ownership, and in that sense it is exactly what the Chairman said about balancing rights.

That is true. I will put a scenario to Ms Regan that illustrates practices that prevailed during the boom, which we all remember although not with so much fondness. A property is sold by an individual who traditionally owned it to a second party, who in turn transfers it to a third party, who in turn transfers it to a fourth party and that property is then transferred to a fifth party and subsequently to a sixth party, as happened on one occasion of which I am aware, escalating its value, in some instances, by up to ten times its original price. Where do we come down on that practice? What is the original price of such a property; what is its current price; and, to what extent does it reflect and impact on the cost of house prices now? My view is that huge speculation was involved in such cases. Not a sod was turned. It was based purely on speculation through the availability of funding from lending institutions and that effectively prevented housing from being worthwhile or available to a large number of people.