Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank both the professor and Home for Good for their presentations. Senator Fitzpatrick is correct: this is the second hearing in this Dáil but in fact we have been discussing the matter for six years, since 2016. The special Dáil Committee on Housing and Homelessness had a very significant discussion of these issues. This is the third programme for Government that has a reference to a referendum on housing or the right to housing. Hopefully, it will be third time lucky this time round.

I will make a couple of comments and then ask some questions. I have always been of the view that our Constitution is not as restrictive as some people claim, in particular those politicians who hide behind the Constitution as an excuse not to do things. Therefore, it is important to put on record that there is more latitude within the Constitution to take action with respect to property rights to meet housing need than some people believe. Rachel Kenny, among others, has publicly made that point very eloquently.

Having said that, I am strongly in favour of holding the referendum. The sooner it comes the better. If we have a cross-party Government and Opposition campaign supported by civil society, that is the best outcome for all of us. We are all eagerly awaiting the recommendations of the Housing Commission. Like Senator Fitzpatrick, I too would encourage people to log on to its website and to get involved in the public consultation because that is very important.

Professor O'Cinneide has given the most eloquent case for the value of it. It is important that as a committee and as politicians we do not overstate it. I remember when the Mercy Law Resource Centre, which has done considerable research work on this, came before the committee many years ago, one of the phrases that it used that stuck with me was if we get the referendum and we secure the right to housing in the Constitution, we are not going to have a queue of people around the Custom House the following day looking for their keys to a free home. That is not what it means. We do need to say that because some of the people who do not like the idea will misrepresent it as that. The phrase the centre went on to use was about placing an obligation in the Constitution on governments to progressively vindicate and realise that right, in particular for those with the greatest level of housing need, into the future. That is the way we need to think about it.

Likewise, it is only one of many tools, and it may not even be the most important, but given the declining housing situation for large numbers of people, the more tools that we have in the toolbox the better. I reiterate our support for the Home for Good wording. If the Housing Commission comes out and strengthens the wording on the basis of even more legal advice, and we have a single recommendation from the commission, that is the best possible opportunity for all of us. Then it is a question of setting the date and running the campaign.

It would also be important to have the conversation. Marriage equality, while primarily about advancing the rights to marriage equality for the LGBTQI communities, also had the profound effect of an important national conversation. We urgently need that conversation about housing and what housing and home means to us as a society, whether it is an investment category and a financial asset or a public good. If it is conducted in the right way, the referendum debate in and of itself, could be hugely beneficial to us as a society.

My question, which leads on from Senator Fitzpatrick's, is to go back to Home for Good in the first instance and continue those practical examples of the benefits and merits. Perhaps one of the questions the witnesses could address, which Professor O'Cinneide did not mention in his list of negatives but was often used during the convention on socioeconomic rights back in 2014, is that somehow putting the right in the Constitution takes away from the Oireachtas our right to decide the best way to vindicate that right. I ask the witnesses to respond to that.

If I could push Professor O'Cinneide further, he very neutrally set out the pros and cons but he came out in favour of the side of an appropriately worded amendment. Could he perhaps give us a little bit more critique of the weaknesses of the negative arguments, or the arguments against it, either in his own opinion or in terms of the academic literature? I would welcome a little more detail on how those arguments are critiqued by advocates of a constitutional right to housing.