Rory Hearne (Dublin North-West, Social Democrats)

It is very disappointing to hear that. We are in a housing crisis and housing emergency now for well over a decade. One could argue in some respects that we have been in a housing crisis since the 1990s. House prices have been on the rise, then we had the crash, and now we are back into rising and unsustainable house prices. There is still something fundamentally wrong with our housing system, our housing market, the way we treat housing and the way we understand housing. Other countries, for example, Spain, have a right to housing in their constitutions. Their starting point in the creation of housing policy and the treatment of housing is that it is a human right. This matters because there is confusion; is it an investment commodity, is it something about a public good, or is it social need? The majority recommendation of the Housing Commission was very clear that there should be a referendum and the right to housing should be inserted into the Constitution, which would then guide all policy decisions and all our interactions around housing from a Government perspective. I am disappointed to hear it is not a priority for the Minister.

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