Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

That is a point of view. Is Mr. Tobin suggesting that the Department's point of view is that property rights trump individual, human, family, personal and social rights? There is a very wide constitutional view that those rights have a very significant status. We recognise private property rights but we also recognise human rights in terms of individuals, families and children. It is a matter of huge distress to many people at the moment that the number of homeless children is continually increasing and children now spend a long time in homelessness. One of the reasons people on the committee feel strongly about the Bill is that as this is now growing with the securitisation of an increasing amount of financial assets people who end up having to give up their homes, as a consequence of these sales - and this is what people are terrified about - will end up homeless with their children. There is a view in the Constitution on human rights as well as property rights.