Dessie Ellis (Dublin North West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Housing should be a right and not a privilege. The right to housing should apply to all those in need of housing and who qualify for it. The right applied in this manner should be applicable not just to families, but to individuals as well. We must also be aware that in today's society, the concept of family can be understood in a wider sense. This should be applied regardless of age, economic status, ethnic grouping, disability or any other factor. The right should be devoid of any form of discrimination and such a right to housing must not be interpreted in a narrow sense beyond just four walls and a roof. It must be seen as a right to live as defined under international law as somewhere in security, peace and dignity.

The right to adequate housing is already protected in the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. These same rights are also laid out in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Similar rights are also laid out in the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and other conventions.

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Ireland needs to recognise formally the right to adequate housing. The obvious and most reasonable way of recognising this right is to enshrine it in the Constitution. Such a right would be of particular value to those living with disabilities or who are particularly vulnerable to housing issues. This would also have the effect of strengthening our hand in Europe and has the potential to unlock impediments to how we borrow money and allocate it as a country, as has been the case for other European countries.

Supporting this Private Member’s Bill is not a panacea for the housing crisis and no Member is suggesting it is. One of the main ingredients in solving the housing crisis, however, is building social and affordable housing because it can be seen that when that stopped being done, these problems developed in recent years.

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