Séamus Healy (Tipperary South, Workers and Unemployed Action Group) | Oireachtas source

In closing the debate, I had hoped to be able to thank contributors for a well thought-out debate with constructive ideas and some exchange of views across the floor of the House. I had even harboured the possibility that the Government might agree to take the Bill on board and start the procedure whereby economic, social and cultural rights could have been put into the Constitution. I would have expected the Labour Party, in particular, would have taken the opportunity of the various centenary celebrations, such as the 1913 Lock-out, the 1916 Rising and the democratic programme of the first Dáil. Given the views of that party's founders, James Connolly and Jim Larkin, I would have thought that at least the Labour Party would have been prepared to start the process, but I was very much mistaken.

There is no doubt that the conduct of the Government and of the Minister of State, Deputy Sherlock, in particular, has been deplorable. I have rarely if ever seen such a display of arrogance. The Minister of State gave no justification for his opposition to the Bill. He spoke for 28 minutes about background and so on and spoke for about two minutes on the Bill. It was an insult to the members of the Constitutional Convention who gave their time, energies and weekends to discussing various constitutional options, including this one. They decided by an 85% majority to start the process of putting these rights into the Constitution. The 66 citizen members chosen at random will be particularly disappointed that the time and energy they have given has effectively been cast aside in such an arrogant manner.

The Labour Party's position is also an insult to its own members. It is an insult to Deputy Ruairí Quinn, who proposed a similar Bill in 2000, as well as to the Minister of State, Deputy Kevin Humphreys, who has a Bill similar to this on the Order Paper. The Minister of State, Deputy Sherlock's speech was effectively a justification of the inequalities over which the Government has presided in the last four and a half years.

It is worth repeating that lower and middle-income families have been carrying the brunt of the recession while very wealthy people have increased their incomes and assets during the recession and the term of the current Government. Recently, The Sunday Timestold us that the 250 richest people have €73.4 billion between them, which is something like 30% of gross domestic product. A couple of weeks before that, the Sunday Independenttold us the richest 300 people in Ireland have a wealth of €84 billion. We know from the Central Statistics Office, the official Government statistics, that the financial assets of the wealthiest people in society are now higher than they were at the height of the boom. Not so long ago, the Minister for Finance told me that the highest paid 10,000 people each have €595,000 per annum.

Side by side with that, there are approximately 100,000 families on social housing waiting lists and 340,000 people unemployed with a further 80,000 in schemes of various kinds. There are thousands of people on trolleys in our hospitals and those figures have increased since last year. Some 400,000 people are awaiting outpatient appointments and 35,000 families face eviction over the next few years. There are 300,000 mortgage holders paying a variable rate almost 2% higher than the European average. These people are bailing out the banks a second time.

It is no wonder that the Government, which includes the Labour Party, did not feel able to put economic, social and cultural rights into the Constitution when it has presided over a situation of immense social dislocation.

There is a huge sense of disappointment, particularly among members of the Constitutional Convention and the various non-governmental organisations which promote the idea of putting these basic rights into our Constitution. I commend the Bill to the House.

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