Professor Colm O'Cinneide:

I do not know enough about the situation in Berlin, which is ongoing, to give the Chairman a very clear idea of what is happening there. I could not provide much of value about that example. There is the general point here that it can have unintended consequences and housing brings its own issues like every other aspect of economic and social policy. I would emphasise the potential role of a referendum in actually freeing up the State to able to deal with all sorts of unintended consequences because some unintended social consequences have been playing out very recently. These social consequences have been building up for the past decade or more of inadequate or slow State responses. There are different forms of unintended consequences to be concerned about. By balancing out some of the pro-property pressures that can often work in favour of inertia, the balancing amendment involving a right to housing referred to by Deputy McAuliffe can in a way free up State policy to be more flexible and responsive and to be quicker to respond to these changing social conditions. In one way, it has the potential to free up State responses to these problems as they develop.