Ivana Bacik (Independent) | Oireachtas source

-----and achieve Government support for them and thereby result in changes in the law that benefit society. That is most important.

I ask the Leader if we could have a debate at some stage in the future on the incorporation of economic, social and cultural rights in the Constitution. I will speak later this morning at an event being organised by Amnesty International in conjunction with a number of other NGOs, which will be chaired by former Senator, Catherine McGuinness. It is focused on the issue of the incorporation of social, economic and cultural rights into the Constitution. The Labour Party has a strong policy on the issue and last year in the Dáil it introduced a Private Members? Bill to incorporate economic, social and cultural rights into the Constitution. It is a topic to which we could return in this House and deal with although it may well come up for discussion at the Constitutional Convention later in the year. It might be helpful to have a debate in this House at some point during this year in advance of the Constitutional Convention considering whether it might wish to consider the issue at the end of its 12 months in operation in December.