Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

In the past hour, the media has been reporting that a 41 year old man with ongoing health problems was confirmed to have been found dead. He was homeless and sleeping in a tent with his partner in Bray over the weekend. This is the third rough sleeper found dead in the past number of weeks. I do not know the exact circumstances of this personal, human tragedy for this man and his family but it cannot be anything other than a shameful stain on this State that yet another person was living in a tent ill and was then found dead by his partner.

This has happened time and again in recent weeks against the background of an absolutely shameful housing and homelessness emergency. I ask the Tánaiste to look urgently at the circumstances surrounding how this could possibly have happened. I must also ask her and her Government colleagues to reconsider the decision of the Government to vote against the Bill which proposes that we insert a right to housing into the Constitution. That vote will be taken in a short while. I simply cannot understand it. I listened with dismay to the Taoiseach yesterday afternoon and afterwards the Minister and the Minister of State explain, or, more correctly, fail to explain why the Government would not listen to the Simon Communities of Ireland, the Peter McVerry Trust, the Children's Rights Alliance and all of the non-governmental organisations dealing on the front line with people who find themselves in these tragic positions. They have stated we should insert a right to housing into the Constitution, but the Government plans to bury that proposal which was supported by 84% at the Constitutional Convention in 2014. It wishes to "further consider" the matter, but people cannot even agree on what committee should consider it. The Government indicates that it should be the finance committee; Deputy Barry Cowen has argued that it should be the housing committee, while Deputy Marc MacSharry has indicated that it should be the justice committee. It sounds to me like they want the issue to be buried in any committee instead of agreeing to the proposal and inserting a right to housing into the Constitution. It is shameful. I ask the Tánaiste to seriously reconsider this decision and send a signal from the Dáil today that human beings living in this state have a right to be housed in dignified, affordable accommodation and not be forced into the tragic circumstances in which so many find themselves.

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