Clare Daly (Dublin North, United Left) | Oireachtas source

The fact that we discussing this Bill today is a tribute to Deputies Pringle and Healy, but is also indicative of the uselessness of this House. Ireland ratified the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in 1989. It is a covenant that sets out rights and states that our State has a duty to respect, protect and fulfil them. It is now 2015. Let us consider those rights. They are hardly the most outrageously radical issues which people could put forward. They include things like the right to an adequate standard of living, including food, clothing and housing, the right of everybody to freely chosen work and decent working conditions, the right to form and join trade unions and rights to health care, social security and education. They are core issues which many people thought were resolved years ago and they form the backbone of many people's lives.

The reality is that they are not being delivered by this State. Therefore, I am not surprised that the Government is wavering on this Bill, although we do not know what it will do. The fact that the Bill is being moved is incredibly timely because of values and how society is measured. It is measured in terms of things like growth rates, inflation, deficit balancing, debt:GDP and all the rest. Where are the old standards that were put forward, such as the right to an education for children to reach their full potential? People had a right to a roof over their heads. We live in a city where a homeless man died on the street before Christmas. There are hundreds of thousands of people on housing waiting lists. People who thought they owned their houses are being turfed out of their properties which are being repossessed by the banks.

The idea that if one is sick one can access health care is under question as the Government is moving to undermine PRSI contributions paid by people during a lifetime of work. It is instead frog-marching us into a universal health insurance scheme. The idea that one would have a pension when one retired, a secure, permanent, pensionable job, sick pay or a holiday are, to be quite honest, things we will have to explain to our children.

The reality is that our society is moving backwards because these issues were not rights that were guaranteed by the State but rather they were hard fought for by citizens who went before us. The Government, and governments across Europe, have used the economic crisis to try to take back those gains. It is an obscenity that we live in a time where humankind has at its hands more resources than ever before and we have the potential to give people a decent standard of living and yet conditions are disimproving. Our children face the prospect of being the first generation to be poorer than their parents, which is an indictment of the Government and others across Europe.

It is not surprising that there has not been a move to incorporate these rights in our Constitution and legislation, because those in power have never been without those things. They do not know what it is like not to have a roof over one's head or a secure, permanent, pensionable job. That is the reality.

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