Ms Leilani Farha:

I will pick up where Ms Kerin left off. If one looks at the jurisprudence from around the world where the right to adequate housing has been litigated through constitutional provisions, the standard that has emerged is a reasonableness one. Judges are inherently conservative in every country. The reasonableness standard is just that. It is reasonable. Governments are expected to act in a way, under constitutional law and the right to adequate housing, that is reasonable as determined by a judge. The quaking in one's boots about what it means to have a constitutional right to housing can be laid to rest if one just reads some of the jurisprudence.

I want to take another kick of the can regarding the constitutional provision. I have been sitting here reflecting on the constitutional versus legislative position. I do not know the whole legal landscape here but from my vantage point I have considered the situation in light of what has happened in Ireland and in light of the power property owners have here and worldwide. Private equity firms and pension funds have been invited into the country. Globally, residential real estate is valued at $163 trillion. It is a business that is doing well. Property owners are well-protected through tax provisions and a variety of other structures and infrastructure in this country and globally. Ireland has private property protected in its Constitution. That is fine. One should ask how that looks in light of a lack of protection around the right to housing and in light of the power, strength and protections already afforded, without a constitutional protection, to property owners. It is an optics thing almost in light of what is happening in Ireland at this point in time.

I was asked what can be done right away. I will give due credit to Ms Perucca, who suggested this. We had the advantage of meeting with NAMA yesterday. It was a very interesting meeting. The Government took some very quick, solid steps to set up NAMA. It devoted resources to NAMA and ensured it did its job. There was an energy around that to ensure the Government could recoup losses for the banks. Surely the same energy and determination could be applied to address inadequate housing and homelessness in the country. Everyone here has said it is an absolute crisis. It is hitting the headlines, not only here but globally. It is certainly on my radar and it brought me to this country. I expect the Government could find the energy, enthusiasm, commitment and will it thinks is required to answer the crisis. I think it can be found within Government to do something equal or more than what it has done through NAMA.

I will move along because a whole bunch of questions were put on the table. On the issue of homelessness and torture, I was not trying to draw a parallel between what it is like to live in homelessness and what it is like to be tortured. I could not really weigh in on that. Torture is recognised as a violation of human rights. I am sure it is recognised in Ireland as a violation of human rights. The right to housing is recognised as a human right by Ireland. It has signed and ratified the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. It enunciates in Article 11 that everyone shall have the right to an adequate standard of living, including adequate housing. Ireland believes that housing is a human right. It has gone off to the UN and reported on the ways in which it is meeting those obligations. Ireland did that in 2015 and the committee had recommendations for it. Ireland has recognised it as a human right. When a State recognises something as a human right, one expects human rights responses to violations of those rights. Ireland has recognised torture as a violation of human rights. One would not just throw a few policies and programmes at it to address it. One would not just say we will have an anti-torture policy. One would see it is a human rights violation, so we will accord to it the highest human rights protections. Ireland has recognised Ireland as a human right so it must accord to it equally the highest human rights and constitutional protections.

On the issue of vacant properties, it is being dealt with around the world. It is a problem around the world. Mostly it is at city level or sub-national Government where one sees traction. For example, high taxes are often put on secondary homes. Paris started off with a 20% tax on vacant homes and found it was insufficient. There is a huge number - over 20,000 - vacant homes in the city of Paris. They found the tax was not high enough so they increased the secondary home tax to 60%. That is a pretty high tax. It is probably the most-----