The Labour Party have proposed changes to the Constitution that would keep Irish Water and the ESB under public ownership.

If the amendment was approved by referendum and added to the Constitution it would mean the State could not privatise water, gas or electricity services.

The party says it is necessary to protect the utilities given the unstable nature of the current government.

Party Chairman Willie Penrose said they did not get enough credit in government for stopping Fine Gael from privatising assets.

He said: “I’ve a simple view of life, the credits are there. We all know what we did wrong, we’re not myopic about that, we all know what we did wrong.

“But when we did things right, there was very little credit rolled out.”