Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

If the Deputy has a specific proposal to make on the wording of the referendum, we would be happy to consider it but we always need to be very cautious about amending our Constitution. As the Deputy rightly points out, 83 countries have a legal right to housing and many of those countries have a homelessness crisis and people living in shanty towns. Putting something into the Constitution or law does not mean it will have any impact on people's lives. There is always the risk that if something is put into the Constitution it may be interpreted in a particular way by the courts. What if, for example, as in many of those 83 countries, it turned out to be a meaningless right? What if it turned out to be a basis on which somebody could sue the State and instead of spending money building houses we would spend that money compensating people for not having a house? That would not make sense either. When changing the Constitution, one needs to know exactly what the wording is, what it means and what the implications are.

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