Last night, the House debated Second Stage of Sinn Féin's Bill to provide for the constitutional right of every citizen to adequate, secure and affordable housing, a key recommendation of the Constitutional Convention. Fine Gael and its partners, Fianna Fáil, have chosen to say no to that proposal and both parties have stated that they will not support the legislation when it is voted on tomorrow afternoon. In the midst of an unprecedented housing crisis, that is an absolutely despicable position for the Government to adopt, particularly considering the support for this legislation by the United Nations special rapporteur for adequate housing.

The Raise the Roof demonstration will take place here in Dublin next Saturday and it will demand real solutions to our housing emergency, including the constitutional right to a home. I am asking the Taoiseach in advance of that demonstration to do the right thing and change his mind on the matter. He should support the provision of a constitutional right to a home. I also urge Fianna Fáil, which has much to say by way of criticism of the Government's housing policy, to step up and support this very basic and necessary demand.

Hear, hear.

The Deputy forgot to say we are Government partners.

As I said before in the House, I have an open mind on the question of including a right to housing in our Constitution, although I am also very aware from research by the Mercy Law Resource Centre and others that there are approximately 83 countries in the world that either have a statutory right to housing or a constitutional right to such housing. All of them have issues with homelessness and in some cases they have shanty towns, favelas and all sorts of things that I am thankful we do not have in this country. I am not entirely convinced it is the real solution, to use the Deputy's term.

The matter should be properly considered by an Oireachtas committee and not just rushed through the House. We must understand what would be the implications and we should never change our Constitution lightly. We need to understand the implications and how they might be interpreted by the courts, and we must also know what would be the costs and how they could be met. We must also work out whether it would make a difference in practical terms for people in real need of better housing. In the debate, the Sinn Féin contributors have not made convincing arguments in that regard.