Mr. Edmund Honohan:

There is not an actual human right to housing. There is a human right to shelter, but amazingly one finds it is not very strong. Passing a referendum and providing a human right to housing is not a solution; it just shifts the cost burden. I do not believe it is necessary to have a constitutional referendum because the common good requirement is such that it can be argued - I have made the argument in regard to children - that society demands a paternal view of its role in regard to how to house people. It needs to accept it has failed in that role and that public housing is the way of the future and we may as well start now by acquiring a portfolio that is out there for grabs.

I should raise the issue of how this committee gets its legal advice, because while we are talking the same language here, there seem to be nuances about this issue that the committee does not understand and ones I do not understand about what members are saying.

In order to get legal advice one needs to find out who is going to give the advice which will stand up to scrutiny. I am only an ordinary senior counsel who has a public service job so I feel at liberty to comment on these things. However, I am not sure whether the legal advice that has been floating around regarding articles of the Constitution is one which stands up to scrutiny, and I wonder why that is. Perhaps there are forces at play that have shut down debate on these matters.