Housing and Residential Tenancies (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2026: Committee and Remaining Stages Seanad Éireann — 2026-07-14 ============================================================ James Browne (FF), Wexford I am happy to provide a brief reply. We are satisfied that the residency requirement in section 20 of the completed final draft is compatible with the Constitution and European and international law. Of course, local authorities are public authorities. They are independent in their decision-making. They have to abide by the law and are subject to the Equal Status Acts but, as Minister, I have no role in their compliance with this legislation. Where local authorities are in breach of the Equal Status Acts, there are other avenues of redress. --- 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/seanad/2026-07-14/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-08-27T06:52:15+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-07-14