Senator Gerard Craughwell- speech from 4 Jun 2021

At the outset, I want to congratulate the Senator for bringing this motion forward. Your constant speeches here on housing and on homelessness are to be commended. However, unlike most of my colleagues here, I do not support a constitutional referendum on housing. I think it's a nonsense, a complete waste of time. Senator McGahan, in his address there a few moments ago, brought us down to the street, to the ordinary 30-something-year-old who's trying to buy a house. I had a phone call from a relation the other day about this debate here, and she said to me, what exactly does it mean if there is a constitutional amendment passed that gives me the right to home if I can't afford it? What does it mean? Does it mean that I can go to the courts and force somebody to give me a house at a particular price? I can't. So, quite frankly, sticking in the Constitution is too crude an instrument. Way too crude entirely. Now, what we need to do is we need to address two things. Senator Alice Mary Higgins spoke about the laws in this country which protect property rights. And it's amazing how those laws can protect the property rights of the extremely wealthy, and when it comes to a private soldier on a pension, that property right, his pension, we cannot protect. We abate it if he gets another job in the public service. I bought and sold or rented 13 houses in my life. None of them were to make an income. They were because the first house I had, I lost because of a bad business decision. And in those days, you could go into a bank and you could explain to them what went wrong, and you could get another mortgage and get started again. Now, Senator McGahan has spoken about 900 quid a month. I know a couple that were paying 1,800 euros a month. 1,800 euros a month. They couldn't possibly save a deposit. But our central bank says if you don't have the money, you can't. If you don't have a deposit, you can't buy a house. Now, Minister, that's where we need to start, with the law. And we need to have the central bank recognise that there are people out there who are paying rents which would pay a mortgage and leave them with change, leave them with money in their pockets that they could live a normal life, that they could enjoy life. My good God, tonight, when you're spending every penny you have to feed yourself and keep a roof over your head, 1,800 euros for a one-bedroom apartment, and don't you worry about it. We'll look after the property rights of the individual who owns the apartment. But what about the unfortunate couple who cannot dream about having a child because where are they going to put the child? Right? So they can't do that. They cannot have any sort of a reasonable life because the particular couple I'm talking about are on a pretty reasonable wage. But at the end of the day, they will never, ever, ever save the money for a deposit. So all the constitutional amendments in the world is not going to get them into a house. Why, Minister, have we over 500 housing agencies in the country? What happened to the local authorities in the 1950s when we had nothing who built houses? And not only did they build houses, I remember my father telling me about how if a piece of timber arrived on the site with a knot in it, it was sent back. Our local authorities built the finest houses, and I think Senator Cassell adverted to that in his speech. They built the finest of houses, and we accommodated people in the finest of accommodations. What have we done now? In my own area, I see, for the second time, I see a housing estate completed, and there's a wall around it. Nobody in it. Why? Are they waiting for the prices to go up? Well, I saw another housing estate where the builder released the houses, and about one every three months. They started off somewhere around about 750,000. They finished up at 1.2 million. What is going on? At the end of the day, Senator Fitzpatrick, you really are a great advocate for people who are homeless and for those who need homes. But forgive me for going against you on this. The Constitution is not the solution. I have no idea whether your bill, Minister, or Minister O'Brien's bill on affordable housing is going to do anything. God help me, but I'm sick to the back teeth of listening to, we now have the solution to housing. Because I'm listening to it for so long that I'm beginning to dread it. When I bought my first house, two and a half times my salary was enough to get me a mortgage. Tell me anybody that will get a mortgage today at two and a half times their salary, unless they're on a massive salary. It's just not going to happen. So really what we need to do is we need to temper the property rights of individuals who own massive tracts of land with the social needs of the individuals that Senator Fitzpatrick is talking about. That's what we need to do. And the Constitution, when we catch up to the demand that there is in the country, when we have started to house the people that are in the country, then let's put in a constitutional referendum to the right to housing and make sure everybody from here on out has the right to housing. Senator McGahan is correct. If there's a little bit of a shady side to your employment that you might lose your job by way of an election, well, you're not getting a mortgage of us because we want somebody who is blueprinted, guaranteed for the future. So Minister, you have a massive job ahead of you. And they used to talk about health being the Angola. I'm afraid housing is the Angola. Now, I wish you and your colleagues the very best. And I apologise to Senator Fitzpatrick for rejecting our constitutional side to this particular argument. But you are a decent person who wants the best for people. I believe that they accept that. Thank you. Thank you.