Seán Ó Fearghaíl (Kildare South, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The point I make is that we currently have problems with social welfare claims. We all see in our constituency clinics the length of time people have to wait. We clearly have a problem in health care - ask anyone on a trolley in any hospital in the country or anyone who is on an interminable waiting list for an orthopaedic or other intervention. People with disabilities are another group whose needs must be addressed. One need only talk to the parents of a child who has been diagnosed with a disability who have been told it is essential that the child must have a particular therapy within a short timeframe but what happens is they are put on a waiting list because there is no hope of providing the therapy. That is no longer acceptable. Neither is it acceptable that people in need of a service must continue to wait.

Another area of rights is linguistic and cultural rights. When one speaks to an Irish language enthusiast around the country, despite the 20 year plan and Acht na dTeangacha Oifigiúla they say they still have significant difficulty transacting their business with the State through Irish in spite of the inordinate amount of money the State has spent promoting the Irish language.

When it comes to cultural rights we may look to organisations such as the GAA and Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann.

They have done an outstanding job promoting, supporting and developing cultural rights. However, what have we done to protect the cultural rights of our indigenous Traveller community, not to mind the inadequacy of our response to protecting the cultural rights of the many non-national groups that have come to live in this society?

I commend Deputies Pringle and Healy. The idea of enshrining economic, social and cultural rights in the Constitution is one that should be actively and positively considered. We can place confidence in the Judiciary, unfortunately more confidence than we can place in the political system, to protect the area of economic, social and cultural rights. If we do what the Bill suggests, we could place economic, social and cultural rights on a constitutional footing and strengthen the obligations on the Government to uphold citizens' rights. It would mean that citizens would have recourse to the courts if the Government fails to live up to its express constitutional requirements. The Government of the day would not be able to row back on housing or social welfare commitments in keeping with the constitutional requirements.

It is apt that we are debating this Bill, which arises from the convention, on a week when the people will cast their votes in two important referenda. Much has been said about the marriage equality issue, and I need not enter into that debate. It is interesting, with regard to the constitutional amendment regarding the President, that at the Constitutional Convention the great preponderance of the debate was about the methodology for selecting the candidates, yet the Government decided instead to run with a constitutional amendment on the age of the President. However, in my travels around the country I have not seen a single poster erected by either of the parties in the Government supporting that amendment. I am not aware of any canvassing literature on it or of any enthusiasm on the part of the public for the proposition, albeit I intend to support it because I do not believe we should be ageist in our approach to any of these issues.

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