Housing Minister James Browne has said a legal right to housing “will not result in the delivery of a single new home” and would “likely redirect State resources to lengthy legal complications for years to come.”
Speaking in the Dáil this week, the Fianna Fáil Minister said the proposal was “very complex” and that a referendum at this time would be a “distraction” from the delivery of homes.
Browne was responding to the Forty-first Amendment of the Constitution (Right to Housing) Bill 2026, a Private Members’ Bill from the Social Democrats which would insert a new Article 40A into the Constitution.
He said he did not reject the general concept of a constitutional right to housing, but warned against proceeding without scrutiny.
“While I do not reject outright the general concept of a right to housing by way of a constitutional amendment, it is very complex,” he said.
“We should all be in agreement that any such proposal should be taken at the right time, with the appropriate level of scrutiny and consultation.”
The Minister cautioned that the government is unable to build every required home itself. Adding the constitutional right without weighing the consequences, he argued, would give the public unrealistic hopes.
“Let me be clear: the State cannot directly provide all the housing the country needs, and to insert a right to housing into the Constitution without considering the ramifications would create false expectations that it can and will likely redirect State resources to lengthy legal complications for years to come,” Browne said.
He said it was also a democratic need for any government to balance housing against healthcare and other social supports.
He said that the Attorney General had previously given the Government preliminary advice on the wording in the Bill, which mirrors the majority report of the Housing Commission, and had “signalled serious issues arising from it that would be irresponsible for us to ignore.”
Browne said there had been no full consensus on the commission. A minority report recommended a statutory plan rather than a constitutional amendment, and another member backed a referendum but with different wording, placed in Article 45. He noted that the commission itself determined that the existing Constitution does not block the government from rolling out major legal reforms to resolve the house crisis.
He pointed to Spain, which has a right to housing in its constitution and which, he said, has a housing crisis.
“That country is blowing up over the housing crisis there at the moment,” Browne said.
“A constitutional right to housing does not really aid anything unless we want to make it strong to make sure that it does, but in that case, it is prioritising issues in terms of government expenditure that may be needed elsewhere and may exclude, for example, healthcare and other social protections and supports.”
He said a referendum now would be a distraction in an already challenged housing market, and that a vote on housing “is not going to resolve the housing supply problem and may have unwanted or unintended consequences.”
The Bill was moved by Social Democrats housing spokesperson Rory Hearne. The Dublin North-West TD said the housing crisis is “a complete and utter catastrophe” and that the Government had let the Housing Commission’s recommendation “gather dust on the shelf.”
The proposed Article 40A would state that the State recognises that having a home is of fundamental importance to quality of life, and that it “guarantees to every citizen a right of access to adequate housing and pledges, as far as practicable, by its laws to protect and vindicate that right.”
Hearne said 16,500 households were issued with eviction notices in 2024, 20,000 in 2025, and 11,000 in the first half of this year, representing a quarter more than the same period in 2024.
He said 47,000 households had been given notices to quit in two and a half years, and described this as the highest level of eviction since the Great Famine. He also pointed to a National Youth Council of Ireland poll indicating that 70% of respondents are thinking about emigrating.
He said Spain and Finland have a right to housing in their constitutions, and that the Housing Commission, Home for Good, Threshold and the Irish Congress of Trade Unions support a referendum. He said Fianna Fáil had previously backed a vote, including on the Oireachtas housing committee in 2020 and in a Seanad motion, and accused the party of a U-turn.
“What is happening is that the institutional investors have said to the Minister that they do not want a right to housing,” Hearne said.
“I do not understand it, and there is no other reason why the Minister would not promote it.”
Sinn Féin TD Thomas Gould said the August homeless figures stood at 17,885 people, including 5,830 children, and that the true number is now higher. The Cork North-Central TD said 276 children are in homeless accommodation in Cork and Kerry.
“It is the Minister who should be ashamed that there are so many children who are homeless,” he said.
He said the Bill would not guarantee a home, but would force the Government to do everything in its power to ensure people have one. He accused Fianna Fáil of breaking a promise to hold a referendum.
People Before Profit TD Richard Boyd Barrett said a similar Bill of his passed the Dáil in 2021 because the Government forgot to call a vote, and that nothing was done afterwards.
“We need to start doing what they do in Spain, because the young and older people, an 87-year-old woman was evicted, are out on the streets saying, ‘We have had enough of this shit,'” Boyd Barrett said.
“What got Die Linke, the left-wing party in Berlin, elected was proposing to expropriate the landlords. That is what the Government is worried about. It is worried that the right to housing might lead to that but it is what needs to happen.”
Sinn Féin housing spokesperson Eoin Ó Broin said the Convention on the Constitution voted by 84% in 2014 to urge the Government to enshrine a right to housing, at a time when fewer than 3,000 adults were in emergency accommodation. The Dublin Mid-West TD said the 2020 Programme for Government had contained a commitment to a housing referendum, and that a Fianna Fáil Senator later tabled a Seanad motion using the same wording as this Bill, which passed.
He said a constitutional right would act as a catalyst for policy change, remove barriers from the Department of Public Expenditure, and stop Governments hiding behind the Attorney General. He described earlier claims that linking rents to inflation would be unconstitutional as “balderdash”, noting that rent pressure zones were later introduced.
He accused the Minister of “the same lame, uninformed justifications for not acting”, and said the Government was scared that a constitutional right would force it to do things it is politically unwilling to do.
Social Democrats TD Sinéad Gibney called the Minister’s description of the Bill as a distraction “disingenuous.”
“Honestly, not to gender stereotype, but can we not multitask in the Government?” Gibney said.
“Can we not pursue the right to housing while we address the supply issue?”
Closing the debate for the Government, Minister of State Michael Moynihan said enshrining a right to housing is not necessary to solve the crisis.
The Fianna Fáil Minister of State said more than 156,000 new homes were delivered in the five years to the end of June 2026, compared with 87,819 in the previous five years and 29,855 in the five years before that. He said €275 billion has been earmarked for infrastructure over the next ten years under the National Development Plan.
“It is simply unrealistic to suggest we can deliver a home for everybody,” Moynihan said.
“Introducing a right to housing in the Constitution will not result in the delivery of a single additional house. Rather, it could create unwanted and unintended consequences that delay the delivery of housing by creating uncertainty in the market and redirecting State resources to addressing lengthy legal challenges for years to come.”
The current Programme for Government contains no reference to proposed constitutional amendments.
The Family and Care referendums, held on March 8th, 2024, were defeated very comprehensively. As reported by Gript on September 16th last year, former Taoiseach Leo Varadkar said governments are now less likely to hold a referendum on a right to housing “because governments are just afraid of the hassle and embarrassment of being defeated in a referendum.”
The Unified Patent Court referendum, originally due alongside the European and local elections in June 2024, was postponed, with no new date set for when it might be held.