Professor Colm O'Cinneide:

Deputy McAuliffe makes an excellent point. It occurs to me that the focused questioning we had in this evidence session is in a way exactly what is needed in this type of referendum. We need to ask the demanding questions about what this right will do, what this proposed referendum will do, what changes will it action and what is the significance of it and how is it going to affect individuals. They are precisely the difficult and demanding questions that need to be answered. They cannot just be smoothed over. The discussion today is a good test run for all of this. It is precisely those demanding questions that need to be flagged in a referendum. If they are not flagged, debated and discussed openly they will come in anyway.

There are a few points to be made on international comparisons. There are very interesting concrete examples from countries such as South Africa but also from various European countries such as Finland and France of the right to housing generating concrete changes for the better. France had a massive housing crisis in the 2000s. It introduced legislation on foot of the constitutionally recognised right to housing and it actually had an impact. There are lessons to point to. I will make two more general points from my time on the European Commission of Social Rights examining how the right to housing was being fulfilled throughout Europe. First of all there is a diversity of ways to give effect to the right to housing. There is no single, fixed right or wrong model especially when it comes to a mixture of social housing and private housing. Different horses for different courses. That is an important point to make. Also important is the need to have flexibility so that State responses to housing crises and changing global financial and economic conditions are not too hemmed in by concerns about private property rights. You need that flexibility which the referendum will help to give. However you also need that focus, that sustained attention over time, both the good times and the bad times, on the need to provide secure housing for the population of Ireland. That is something the referendum can give. Sustained focus over time plus flexibility in State responses are two important points to add to the conversation.