Housing Policy Dail Éireann — 2026-01-22 ============================================================ James Browne (FF), Wexford I recognise Deputy O'Connell's concern in this area and her compassion for families who want to keep their pets. Their pets are now part of the family and they give some much comfort and support to people. Whether that is older people or children and their families, pets are very much part of it. That is the reason we were so anxious to ensure there was a very clear line of direction included in the housing plan sending out that message to AHBs and local authorities and putting it now into a code of practice. I do not think legislation will be needed. If it is needed, we will do it with legislation, but through codes of practice and service level agreements with local authorities and AHBs, we can effect this more quickly. I have been saying this to our local authorities and AHBs, as our officials have been, and therefore I would expect them to act in anticipation of this change. --- Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted. Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-01-22/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:32+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-01-22