Paul McAuliffe (Dublin North West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Of course. The only elevation, Deputy McNamara, is the success of this policy. When I advocated it in this House a number of weeks ago, I said I thought we had reached the point where it would be possible to do it. It is important for us to say there are legal constraints on this. The points made by Deputies McNamara and Boyd Barrett outline the extent of the parameter. Ultimately, we are siding with the most vulnerable here, in the case where we know it is not a zero-sum game. We know there are knock-on effects on landlords and on the market. We are desperately trying on every front in Housing for All to increase supply at every level with every tool. This is one measure we are taking and we take it on the basis of siding with people who were going to face eviction over the winter in the context of all that is going on internationally and domestically.

It is a balance but we should not ignore the fact that many of us in this House called for a right to housing to be inserted in the Constitution. We do that so that we can make more macro interventions and more aggressive interventions in the market where the right to housing can be balanced against private property rights. The Attorney General advised Government more would be possible in this space. I look forward to the commission on housing bringing forward recommendations on the changes we could make to the Constitution to allow governments take stronger measures in housing.

Opposition Deputies ignore the fact that when they call for a right to housing and also call for us to go further in this area, they are being hypocritical. Those two concepts are not compatible. Opposition Deputies want the right to housing inserted so we can go further but equally criticise us when we do not go further. This is a balance and I think we are doing it in the right way.

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