“How many homes should be constructed every year? How should construction be financed? How should living spaces be designed?”
President Michael D. Higgins took to the stage in Galway this weekend to deliver an impressive speech at the launch of the ‘First Thought Talks’ strand of Galway International Arts Festival (GIAF).
Higgins called for the formation of a debate on the current housing crisis which is plaguing the country, opting to speak personally about his time as a university lecturer in NUIG, as well as laterally by referencing different philosophies surrounding the meaning of the word ‘home.’
He said that in order to sustain “a political community committed to a rights-based vision of justice”, we simply cannot be confined “to a single territorially-defined political community.”
He also referenced the current migrant crisis claiming that “an international solidarity” is a requirement to allow for the best solution for all.
“For in the twenty-first century, there can be no partial solidarity, whether national solidarity or European solidarity. We require now an international solidarity, shorn of national antagonisms, open and willing to co-operate where we can and sacrifice where we must.”
Hundreds attended Higgins’ speech which saw the president “pay a special tribute” to Catherine Corless, the local historian who worked tirelessly on recording the deaths of almost 800 infants at the Tuam mother and babies home.
“She has demonstrated not only courage and perseverance but a remarkable commitment to uncovering the truth, to historical truth and to moral truth,” he said.
“All of us in this republic owe a debt of gratitude to Catherine for what was an extraordinary act of civic virtue.”
The president’s speech, held on Saturday morning, introduced the festival’s ‘First Thought Talks’ on the theme of ‘home.’
He went into great detail about the definition of the word ‘home’, how it can be anything from “a function of residence” to “a guarantee of security”, next mentioning how slavery – “the most abhorrent of human institutions” – arose in the years in which our ancestors, the Homo habilis, first began to produce “single, sedentary” spaces, some two million years ago.
This led his conversation to the conflict between ideas of home and property, how it fluctuates greatly between dwelling and belonging.
“The clash in the assumptions of differing civilizations in conflict would lay the seeds of a harvest that took a century to ripen,” he said.
“We need only think of the native peoples of North America and Australia, whose ideals of life and what was envisaged as ‘home’ were very different from those developed in North-West Europe.”
Higgins then called for integration of the right to home into Irish law.
“There is not, as yet, a justiciable right to home as housing in the Irish legal order, though I welcome previous discussions of the Convention on the Constitution on the possible incorporation of economic and social rights in our Constitution,” he said.
“This is a debate that we urgently not only need to continue but be deepened by taking into account the work of Professor P.J. Drudy, Des Collins, Punch, and others as well as Dr. Kenna. Can and should we integrate the idea of the right to a home into our law and policy-making in a serious way?
“If we recognise that housing is necessary for the creation of home in our society, we need to think seriously about all the constituent parts of our housing system.”
Higgins’ speech can be read in full here.
The GIAF programme of “First Thought Talks” continues this weekend and 28 July. The arts festival and Galway Fringe continues until 30 July.
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