Clare Daly (Dublin Fingal, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Leas-Cheann Comhairle. I compliment Deputy Pringle on proposing the Bill. Our job as parliamentarians is to look at the world turned upside down or, as we would say, right side up. There is an incredible irony in the current juncture. We live in a world where society has more resources at its disposal than ever before, yet things that our parents perhaps in some ways took for granted are being threatened. The idea that one would have a right to health care when sick, to access food when hungry, to a roof over one's head and to an education and that one would hold out the prospect that one's children could have a better life than one's own is being stood on its head. The rights that people thought were there for life such as the right to a pension on retirement are under threat. In that sense, the Bill is to be hugely welcomed because it puts the focus on where things should be, starting at how we meet the needs of citizens in this country and around the globe.

I do not have much time, but I want to deal with the same aspect on which many Deputies focused. The Bill has the potential to bestow the right to housing. At this juncture, this is absolutely critical. Of all the instruments of international law and UN conventions that Ireland is party to, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights provides the most comprehensive protection for the right to housing and, God only knows, we need that at the moment. There is a disgusting irony in the fact that our Constitution protects property rights but not the right to housing, which is really telling about the priorities of successive Governments in this State. We must put it on the record that we are an exception in global terms or certainly in European terms in that regard. Ireland is one of only three countries in the EU 15 in which people have neither a constitutional nor a legislative right to housing. Such a right is therefore not even that radical. Most European countries have it already.

In 2012, a poll commissioned by Focus Ireland found that 80% of the public supported a constitutional right to housing. It would probably be 98% now given the crisis that has unfolded. The housing crisis is not an accident but Government policy. Throughout the country, thousands of people are homeless. In my area, 300 people are without a home and those are only the ones that the council know about. Tens of thousands of people are barely hanging on, having to fork out 50% to 60% of their income to keep a roof over their heads. All of this is to prop up the banks and the elite. It is reprehensible.

Sr. Stanislaus Kennedy described Ireland's housing crisis as a debased currency. It is not new to use housing as a gambling chip in Ireland, but the grim end game is very much apparent now. I do not think anyone here is saying that if we pass this legislation it will be a magic wand do address the situation. It certainly is not, but it will go some way towards re-tilting the balance in favour of citizens and giving some form of redress.

I find it astounding that the Minister for Finance, Deputy Noonan, on the back of a housing crisis, recently stated the following: "Homelessness is explained by a shortage of accommodation and while an increase in rent might push an individual family into homelessness, the rental unit vacated will accommodate another family." With such a sociopathic callousness - that is the only way to describe it - at the top of the Department of Finance, is it any wonder we have reached this point? Perhaps the Minister picked up this valuable insight in one of the 65 meetings held between his officials and vulture funds between 2013 and 2014.

The future will be incredibly bleak for citizens if we continue to let the market dictate our basic rights. The Government has repeatedly rejected rent controls on the basis they may distort the market. What we are trying to do with this legislation is ensure political and civil rights are enshrined in the Constitution. It is difficult to create a market for those areas that are protected by rights. What we are trying to do is remove the commodification of basic rights. This Bill is an excellent step forward and addresses precisely the type of issue the Oireachtas should address. I compliment Deputy Pringle on bringing it before the House.

See this speech in context