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

With every Government announcement and policy change over the past three years, the housing crisis has gotten worse. The number of homeless people and the number of families and children in need of housing have gotten worse rather than better and the tragic deaths of people sleeping rough on the streets continue. Why would a proposal to enshrine the right to housing as a basic human right be referred to the Joint Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform and Taoiseach three years after the Constitutional Convention said that it should be put in the Constitution? Perhaps the motive was revealed when I asked the Taoiseach yesterday why the Government is not supporting that proposal and he said he did not believe that everyone should be housed for free. What on earth was the Taoiseach talking about? Who is housed for free in this State? Does that statement not reveal a deep-seated prejudice against people who rely on social housing and would pay their rent but cannot get social housing because the State fails to provide it? Is that the real reason the problem is not being solved?

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