Jan O'Sullivan (Limerick City, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputy Wallace for introducing the Bill, which the Labour Party will support. We introduced the Social and Affordable Housing Bill in 2016, which also proposed the implementation of the Kenny report but while we received the support of the left in the House at the time, we did not, unfortunately, get the support of Fine Gael or Fianna Fáil and the Bill did not pass on Second Stage. It contained a number of measures, but a central one was the implementation of the Kenny report. I support fully the implementation of that 1973 report. In fact, I was a member of the all-party committee on the Constitution which recommended in 2004 that the implementation of the report would be in accordance with the Constitution. I note for the information of Deputy Casey that the committee was chaired by Senator Denis O'Donovan, who is now Cathaoirleach of the Seanad. Our legal advisor to the committee was Mr. Justice Gerard Hogan, who was then a very eminent senior counsel. He advised that there was no constitutional impediment. Deputy Casey quoted some of Article 43, but it is no harm to quote it in full. It is quite short and I have six minutes left. Article 43.1 states:

1° The State acknowledges that man [they always said "man" in those days], in virtue of his rational being, has the natural right, antecedent to positive law, to the private ownership of external goods.

2° The State accordingly guarantees to pass no law attempting to abolish the right of private ownership or the general right to transfer, bequeath, and inherit property.

The provisions of Article 43.1 are balanced in Article 43.2 which states:

1° The State recognises, however, that the exercise of the rights mentioned in the foregoing provisions of this Article ought, in civil society, to be regulated by the principles of social justice.

2° The State, accordingly, may as occasion requires delimit by law the exercise of the said rights with a view to reconciling their exercise with the exigencies of the common good.

That is pretty clear. In any case, the interpretation and recommendation of the all-party committee in 2004 were very clearly that the Kenny report can be implemented. Now is a time to do so as we are beginning to see the hoarding of land in a really big way again. It must be stopped.

Other Members have provided many statistics as to what is happening. Deputy Wallace knows better than most of us in the House the ups and downs of the business and the kinds of things that landowners will do to make more money or to protect their potential earnings. I refer to the vacant site levy in that context. It is important to ensure that measures are constitutional because if they are not, one can be sure that people will take cases, in particular people with money and power. As such, it is important to ensure that what one does is in accordance with the Constitution. Many people have dismissed the 2015 legislation and the vacant site levy as useless but they had to be proofed against the Constitution. That is one of the reasons there has been such a long lead-in time. While the registers have been compiled over the past few years, the levy is not coming in until next year. I was involved at the time and we were told we had to so provide because of the right to private property in the Constitution.

Deputy Alan Kelly was the Minister at the time and he tried to introduce a higher levy. Whether it was the Fine Gael or the legal advice, he was certainly advised at the time that he would not get any further with that. He battled to make it higher at the time and there is a proposal from Government, which I welcome, to make it higher now. Deputy Wallace's Bill seeks to bring it to a higher level also. I support that measure albeit we must ensure that it is constitutional. We have seen people with power and money use the courts in the past to delay things for years. As such, we have to be realistic. In saying that, I agree with Deputy Connolly that many local authorities had not compiled registers comprehensively or even at all. I agree with Deputy Wallace about taking away any loopholes that have been discovered. Local authorities must put their own land on the registers too. Certainly, there is evidence that they own vacant sites which they have not registered. The levy must be effective but I caution that it must also be constitutional.

I have no problem with the two Fianna Fáil Deputies who are present, but I take issue with the other three who have spoken. One said, more or less, that only Fianna Fáil knew how to get down and dirty and build houses. Another talked about how few houses were built in the first three years of the Labour Party-Fine Gael Government. However, that, of course, was because they were not started under Fianna Fáil. The Deputies know very well that the number of houses built is the number completed. They also know very well that it takes approximately three years to get from the start of a project to the end, if not longer in many cases.

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