Dáil debates

Wednesday, 20 September 2017

An Bille um an gCúigiú Leasú is Tríocha ar an mBunreacht (Ceart chun Tithíochta), 2017: An Dara Céim [Comhaltaí Príobháideacha] - Thirty-fifth Amendment of the Constitution (Right to Housing) Bill 2017: Second Stage [Private Members]

 

9:45 pm

Photo of Maurice QuinlivanMaurice Quinlivan (Limerick City, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputies of Solidarity-PBP for bringing forward this Bill. It is a very important Bill which highlights the homelessness and housing crisis that is the number one issue facing our country. It is a disgrace that in 2017, in a rich country with the fastest growing economy in Europe for the fourth year in a row, the Government cannot house our people, in particular the homeless. Thousands of houses are lying vacant but there is no real progress in bringing many of them back into use. Land is being hoarded by developers and Fianna Fáil comes up with a proposal to give developers a tax break. Rents continue to escalate and that is forcing people out of their homes, but areas such as Limerick, which I represent, are not designated as rent pressure zones. More money needs to be set aside to build more houses for everyone, including the homeless, first-time buyers and adults living with their parents. However, the Government will cut taxes instead of investing the money in building more homes. The causes are there and the solutions are available but the hard decisions and leadership are absent.

Enshrining the right to housing in the Constitution would not solve the homelessness or housing problems and no Member on this side of the House has said it would. It would, however, put in place a basic floor of protection. It would require the State in its decisions and policies to protect reasonably the right to housing. It would recognise that a home is central to a person’s dignity and that everyone should have the possibility of attaining a home.

Many statistics and figures have been mentioned during this debate. However, behind the figures are people. There is a human crisis in the city of Limerick, where I am from, where there are often three generations of families living in one house and 297 people are in emergency accommodation, which is the highest outside of Dublin. Fifty families and 80 children have no home in the mid-west. Those figures do not convey the daily hardship and suffering that those people have to endure. Children are in crisis emergency accommodation and no solution is forthcoming. It is time for a new approach from the Government. The Minister is new to his role and I will not put all the blame on him, but the Government has been in power for six years and it is to blame. The crisis has deteriorated significantly over those years, and whenever the Opposition suggests alternative solutions or ideas, those suggestions are shot down by the Minister’s side of the House to the detriment of the people behind the figures I have referenced.

I welcome the Bill and thank the Deputies who brought it forward.

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