The 39th Amendment: A Rare Interaction Between Opposing sides

My thoughts after talking with Niall Boylan and Peter Dooley on Niall's Podcast today.

Today I was invited on as a contributor on to the Niall Boylan’s Podcast for what I will say was one of the best exchanges I have had in a long time with a an activist by the name of Peter Dooley. Niall has had me on on a regular basis over the last number of weeks and months and I relish the opportunities given to cast my mark onto the topics of the day. Niall hosts a great podcast that is not afraid to hear both sides of any argument. He plays Devil’s advocate quite well and also weighs in with his own opinion liberally which is typically conservative, but also rooted in common sense. Although developing a concept can be difficult on a show of this kind which is typically quick-fire in nature, today I did get to flesh out my points when I was granted the opportunity to press Mr. Dooley on his Housing4All sales pitch.

First of all, who is Peter Dooley? Peter is a seasoned activist who has done trojan work in the in the fight against homelessness and has campaigned on an anti-war message quite effectively. Dooley ran for People Before Profit in the past but is now operating as an independent candidate. How independent this is, remains to be seen, but independent he is so I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt for now. Peters political stances are what a lot of us would call old school left. He is very much pro immigrant from a civil rights point of view and I am sure we would clash heads on that topic but he has a few feathers in his cap which redeem him in my eyes. He is against the Hate Speech Bill, referring to it as draconian. He was also against the vaccine passports and other covid lockdown measures. In many senses, Dooley is as anti establishment as any of us who are called far right but he does hold some views which are against the grain for a person who is conservative, libertarian or nativist. One such stance, which was the subject of today’s podcast, is the issue of the 39th amendment. For context, I am including the proposed text of the amendment here:

3 1° The State, in particular, recognises the common good as including the right to secure, affordable, dignified housing, appropriate to need, for all the residents of Ireland and shall guarantee this right through its laws, policies and the prioritisation of resources.
3 2° The State, accordingly, shall delimit the right to private property where it is necessary to ensure the common good and to vindicate the said right to housing for all residents of Ireland.

On todays show Niall was asking callers, who listened to Peter’s well researched and presented stance, would they vote yes or no to the 39th amendment. Peter set out the table well with endearing points about vulture funds buying up swathes of property, lack of investment and correctly points to vacant homes as a problem that cannot be ignored. Peter put the best case scenario of the bill’s potential forward, stating that this would pressure the government to provide housing for all those in need. He did not proactively address the issue of property rights. This had to be put to him by the callers and put it to him they did, with all the people before me zeroing in on the delimiting of private property rights as specifically a communist idea. For those who do not know, Karl Marx, the father of communism stated in the Communist Manifesto: "In this sense, the theory of the Communists may be summed up in the single sentence: Abolition of private property." When it was put to peter that he was a communist by a caller before me, Peter scoffed and stated it is not communism, it is humanitarianism. Perhaps for those receiving said property Peter, but certainly not for those who have it stolen from them by the other side of that sword. The callers were right to label Peters stance as a potential yes voter, a communist one.

Peter seemed to genuinely believe his words however, and continued on with another caller before me who generalised the issue in common sense terms quite well, highlighting the fact that the constitution is not being honoured by the courts and stated she would vote no. And then it was my turn to throw my hat in the ring. I put it to Peter that he holds the view that private property rights should be abolished, which is what this bill effectively does. He denied that this was his position.

Can we presume here he is an optimist and believes that this government, or perhaps Sinn Fein when they get in, will keep that tool that they have campaigned for for years, unused in a dusty cupboard?

I kept the conversation focused on the wording of the bill rather than get drawn into should’s, wouldn’t’s and maybe’s. I fell like I pinned Peter down nicely when I stated that the family home isn’t protected in the text of the amendment. Peter stated that he thinks it should be protected. I pointed out that the wording of the bill does not protect the family home.

At the start of the show Peter Dooley advocated for a yes vote. Our interaction ended as follows:

Me: ”you’re asking people to vote away their private property rights so you have to be honest about this and tell them, is the family home protected in that amendment”

Peter Dooley: “ well it should be, it should be part of that amendment and it should be protected”

Me: “ Yeah but it’s not Peter, so thats the question I am asking, I agree it should be, you agree it should be, but its not there so it should be me and you saying everyone vote no until thats sorted”

Peter Dooley: “Yeah well absolutely”.

I feel that Peter beginning the podcast looking for a yes vote from the listeners and ending our exchange agreeing with me that the bill does not protect the family home, and that it should, is a major blow to sincerity of his belief in the yes vote in the first place. This is a major flaw in his reasoning here and I think he may have realised this as we spoke that he could not publicly call for private family homes to be subject to the states designs. If you read this Peter I believe a long form discussion on this is needed between us on this as I like a lot of your ideas and agree with you on far more than you would maybe think. The housing crisis will end when the conservative libertarians and rational left coalesce on this issue. I believe in social housing. I believe social housing is the solution, It will just take balls of steel to get it across the line rather than cowardly land grabs.

As for the rest of the readers, you can listen to the full podcast here. All contributions were great in my opinion so I recommend listening to the full show:

https://niallboylan.com/podcast/should-you-have-constitutional-right-to-a-home-episode-92