Mary Seery Kearney (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the witnesses for their presentation and all the background documentation, which I have read. I completely support the objective of prioritising housing and security of tenure. Everyone should have the right to a secure home. I have been involved in the provision of social housing, worked with the homeless and, as a public representative, advocated on behalf of families in need. I therefore support absolutely the spirit of the witnesses' presentation and the work they are doing. Over recent years, as we have emerged from an economic crisis, and it is the economic element I wish to address, we have seen a rise year on year in the provision of housing, with this year seeing the largest ever commitment in that regard.

My question arises from the witnesses' positioning of the proposed amendment under Article 43 and the use of its placement within that article. I hear them in that this is a qualifying right to the interpretation of the right to private property and how that would be applied. I hear them also on the chilling effect it has and respect that contention. To be fair, as a lawyer who has worked in a pro bonocapacity trying to keep people in their homes as a consequence of sub-prime lending and so on, I could see it being a really useful tool for me arguing in court. The wording of it does raise concern, however. There is a lack of precision in the term "adequate housing". I understand why at a constitutional level one would want as broad a church as possible. Then, however, we get into what is adequate. How does any Government start legislating as to what is adequate? Does it mean that children have to have a bedroom each? I think we could get into that, and that concerns me.

The greater concern I have with the amendment, however, are the words "within the available resources". That means we will have competing rights within a budget or within the context of a pandemic or an economic crisis arising from an exuberance of policy. One of my judicial heroes is Mr. Justice Peter Kelly. He got himself into a lot of hot water back in 2000 by attempting to injunct Ministers in the application of policy on care packages for young people.

Did the witnesses consider perhaps addressing Article 45 instead and looking at invigorating that?

Any Government putting forward a budget must look at competing spends. My concern is this could go in, and its aspiration is fantastic and the right is fantastic, but it could end up being non-justiciable because we will have a budget competition. If we were addressing the idea of social policy, and Article 45 specifically speaks to the directive of social policy, why not then include housing or a roof over people's head? I assume the amendment would not propose that no one would ever rent again and that we would arrive at such nirvana. There will always be different types of tenure, whether that is home ownership or rental. Was any consideration given to the possibility of ensuring that in the competing budgetary rights we could move the right to a roof over people's heads higher, with the Government being directive on social policy in this respect? Consequently, flowing from this we could have the administration of budget happening on a particular hierarchy, such as homes always being above law and order. We could look at it in this way, whereby a radical overhaul of Article 45 would be a consideration. I am interested to hear what the witnesses have to say on this.