Séamus Healy (Tipperary, Workers and Unemployed Action Group) | Oireachtas source

The right to housing is a human right but the Minister and the Government are treating housing as a commodity on the market, resulting in the biggest housing and homelessness crisis since the Great Famine. Bunreacht na hÉireann provides for the declaration of emergencies and I specifically refer to Articles 43.2.1° and 43.2.2° where the public good trumps private property rights. This Dáil has also voted for the declaration of such an emergency on 3 October 2018 by 83 votes to 43 on a Solidarity-People Before Profit motion. There is also the fact that the Government is currently using this process with the financial emergency measures in the public interest, FEMPI, legislation, where it is confiscating pension payments, which of course are private property. The declaration of a homelessness and housing emergency is constitutional, it is legal and it is a practical solution to the housing and homelessness crisis created by the Government.

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