Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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I thank the witnesses for their presentations. I commend the work of Home for Good. It is a really good alliance and initiative to try to bring this issue to the next level. I acknowledge the good campaigning work of other networks, such as Raise the Roof, which has been strongly arguing for such a constitutional referendum. As committee members will know, Sinn Féin has long supported such a referendum. It is important to acknowledge that this is probably the fifth time we have discussed this issue in this room and in this format. We did it on four separate occasions, twice when Mercy Law Resource Centre had published two very good reports and at two other hearings. At some point, we have to stop discussing it in this room, we must have a referendum campaign and try to change the Constitution. Perhaps this will be the Dáil and the committee that pushes it on to the next level.

Three arguments are often used against such a referendum. I will put them to the witnesses because I would like to hear their responses. The first is that such a constitutional right would guarantee everybody in the State the right to a free home and there would be a big queue outside Government Buildings where everybody would looking to get their keys. It is a counter-argument often used by critics. I would like the witnesses to respond specifically to it. Another counter-argument we hear is that a constitutional right to housing will not build any homes and there are many jurisdictions that have such rights and their housing crises are as bad if not worse than ours. I would interested to hear the witnesses' response to that argument. A third argument, which was used heavily by opponents of economic, social and cultural rights in the Constitutional Convention, is that this would be an interference in the role of the Legislature and Government to set policy and it would give the courts undue influence in that area. I will give the witnesses an opportunity to respond to those points.

The witnesses might outline, for those members who do not know, what the outcomes of the Ninth Report of the Convention on the Constitution 2014 were, specifically with respect to this right. More than 80% of people at that convention voted strongly in favour of such a right. I would like to hear the witnesses' thoughts on that. Will they explain, in plain English to those of us who are not lawyers or constitutional experts, why this is valuable, what use this would be to those members of this committee who are genuinely concerned about the state of our housing crisis and would like additional tools to try to resolve those problems?