‘Your Minister Has Failed’

at

 

From top: Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald, Housing Minister Eoghan Murphy and Taoiseach Leo Varadkar

This afternoon.

In the Dáil.

During Leaders’ Questions.

Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald spoke about homelessness and raised her party’s pending motion of no confidence in Housing Minister Eoghan Murphy which will be debated at 8pm.

Ms McDonald called Taoiseach Leo Varadkar “delusional”.

She said:

“Taoiseach, I can only surmise that you’re delusional…you seem to believe that everything is ok, that you’re on track…despite the facts, not opinions, not speculation, the facts – that homelessness has risen. That houses prices rise, that rents are out of control and beyond the reach of even people at work.

“You seem to be entirely immune to the fact that people are now taking to the streets and taking direct action, to give voice to the anger and, in fact, the desperation that they feel.

You’re plans are not working, your minister has failed and is failing in his duty to the tens of thousands of people on housing lists to the ten thousand people who are homeless, to the children that I referred to earlier, who will sleep tonight and the next night, and the night after, and the night after that, in emergency accommodation.

“And by the way, we make no claim to have a monopoly on empathy but we certainly on these benches have plenty of exposure to those families and those very real, despite experiences and yet you are immune to them and delusional. Because you stand up as head of Government and you claim that you’re plan is working and that Fianna Fail assists you in that regard.

“You have failed, your minister is failing and on behalf of the people at the weekend who came out, desperate people, desperate people, with real stories, they want an answer from you and they want someone held to account and I suggest to you again Taoiseach that the person to be held to account in the first instance is Minister Eoghan Murphy.”

Mr Varadkar responded:

“We all know what this is about. The Dáil is back, Sinn Féin is looking to score political points so they put down a motion, a motion that is just pure politics. A motion that is just pure politics, tactical, cynical, personalised and ineffective. And there’s one thing that’s absolutely certain.

“There’s one thing that’s absolutely certain. The Sinn Féin motion put down tonight, if passed, will not house a single person. Nor will it help us to build houses any quicker than we are already. And this is all we have from Sinn Féin – oppositional politics, cynical politics, personal politics. They don’t really care about people who are homeless. They don’t really care about people on the housing list.

“They don’t really care about young couples who are struggling to buy for the first time. That’s why they put forward no solutions. When they put forward solutions, they’re solutions that don’t work. All over the country, all over the country, when they can help, all over  the country, when they can help, their councillors vote down social housing.

“Whether it’s in South Dublin or whether it’s in the North Inner City…This is the truth of Sinn Féin.”

Watch Dáil proceedings live here

UPDATE:

Sponsored Link

26 thoughts on “‘Your Minister Has Failed’

  1. Murtles

    Smoke and mirrors, like the newspaper reports this morning saying there’ll be no Christmas bonus to Social Welfare recipients. But out comes super Varadker to say that it will be in fact be paid and hopefully this will distract and deflect a bit of the criticism.

    1. postmanpat

      Mary Lou/Sinn Fein/IRA only cares about 32 counties unity ,its all that shower of terrorist snakes care about.. They don’t know how to govern or organize anything except bank robberies, knee capping and protecting pedophiles. I’m sure the government are making a balls of this housing mess, but woman and children killing terrorist worshiping clowns like the big girl there there giving criticism is a bit rich. Everything she says can be ignored. No struggling mortgage paying homeowner wants social housing built anywhere near them. What would Sinn Fein do? have the anti-social housing protest organizers beaten up or disappeared. We all know what these thugs are about.

      1. pedeyw

        “No struggling mortgage paying homeowner wants social housing built anywhere near them.” Tough poo. There are worse off.

          1. pedeyw

            Nope. I probably never will be, either. Nor will I qualify for social housing. Not that it matters. I don’t think being worried about the value of property should be prioritised over building houses for people.

          2. Cian

            You think that way. And that is your right.

            But someone that is paying (or has paid) a mortgage is likely to feel different… and that is their right.

  2. JunkFace

    I agree with a lot of what Mary Lou has said (I’m not usually SF fan). This is a crisis that seems to be making no progress, definitely no immediate progress. We need to rewrite our laws to include an amendment that says ALL Irish ministers are to be paid at 30% of their normal salary, until their performance has been reviewed. Irish Governments have been overpaid, cowardly and ineffective for too long. So why aren’t we punishing them? Everyone else gets performance reviews. Everyone else has their backs to the wall financially because of the absolute Mess Irish politicians have created over the last 30 years. If they do not perform, they should not be fully paid. In fact they should be sacked if they fail their review until we find somebody capable.

    1. Hansel

      TBF I think their performance reviews tend to be 100% of wage and based on 4-year cycles. A big problem we have is that centralised government is voted for as though it’s local.

      A TD will gain votes for completely screwing their department brief but ensuring (or at least claiming to ensure!) their local area got its new school/hospital/road/etc.
      TD’s need to be elected on national issues only, but they behave like local councillors at election time and It’s to the detriment of everyone in the end.

      Also, I’m all for performance review, but who would be best placed to decide on the performance? It’s a similar problem to reviewing teacher performance: very difficult in practice

    2. phil

      Totally agree, and I would add,
      it could be incentive based , politicians get paid the national industrial wage, and if the fortunes of the people in that wage bracket improve noticeably after 5 years they get huge bonuses to bring them up to their current salary .

      Any politician that has adverse findings made against them by a tribunal or inquiry can have their pension reduced to state pension.

      Abolish ministerial pensions , and potentially pay bump for being a minister.

      Any private business that does government work must publish their accounts fully and be tax resident in Ireland.

      Every conversation a politician has with any lobbyist must be recorded and released publicly at the end of the term.

      And some sort of mechanism so that the public can remove elected politicians and cause a by-election if they break reasonable election promises.

      A code of ethics that has real real power to sanction politicians

      and finally TERM limits , no more than 2 terms for any politician.

    3. Martco

      100% agree

      that Ranelagh clown would simply not survive in any tier 1 corporate I’ve worked in…unless of course its some sort of floaty arts or personal fitness crp

      I’d also add to this a replacement of the gold plated defined benefit pension “scheme” (it’s some scheme alright) with a normal pension like the rest of us

      the problem is this however – our very non-vocational trough system will ever ever change – bloodshed – non-peaceful so it’ll never happen

    4. small ads

      Yup. And also, their wages should be tied to their success on climate change. And if Ireland gets a stonking fine, a juicy percentage should be taken from the wages of all ministers and all TDs and all senators because they’ve failed to take action to tackle the greatest threat facing humanity. Pay for performance, like in other jobs. And performance not just to help “the economy” but also to give a decent life to people living in the country – decent healthcare, housing, work choices and education.

  3. b

    ministers are already sacked if the public don’t believe the government has performed – it’s called an election

    1. JunkFace

      How has that been working out? Also, we need to put a stop to Ministers with zero qualifications or experience for certain fields being employed there. Only Ministers with relevant Qualifications and experience can be put in charge of critical Government positions. This does not even happen in other European countries, and it damages quality of life in Ireland.

      1. Cian

        At the moment the Dáil has the legislative power. And the Cabinet has the executive power.
        We elect the TDs individually, and they choose the Taoiseach and s/he decides on the Ministers (from the pool of TDs/Senators[1]).

        Are you suggesting that we separate the executive out (US/French style).

        We leave the Dáil as is – to enact legislation, but have a directly elected Taoiseach. The Taoiseach can bring anyone they want into the Cabinet as Ministers? So you have (in theory) qualified experiences Ministers – but at the cost of not electing them directly? Would you be happy with that trade-off? (or do you have something else in mind?)

        [1] At the moment the Taoiseach can nominate anyone as a Senator, then make them a Minister (with the exception of Finance and something else). But this is limited to their 7 Senators.

  4. kellMA

    I’m no fan of SF and I agree they don’t have any plausible policies and I certainly don’t think they would do any better. However, the point is still valid. All the outcomes are getting worse, not better. It is not far off an emergency situation in my view and rent-levels and availability of suitable housing is a serious problem. Our housing market is seriously dysfunctional. I honestly think there are some shorter-term measures they could take like tackling the Air BNB issue. Do I think any other minister could do better? Not necessarily. But a bit of kicking and screaming is needed now.

  5. LeopoldGloom

    Varadkar accusing someone of playing politics.

    Not my taoiseach. Awful person with no shame, no empathy and cares only about image.

  6. RuilleBuille

    “just pure politics”.

    Varadkar you are a politician. The Dail chamber is a political debating arena! FFS!

  7. Alan McGee

    Varadkar is 100% correct, one thing absolutely certain is Sinn Féin don’t really care.
    Another absolute certainty is, neither do Fine Gael.

    1. Cian

      While we’re at it.

      Neither do FF or Labour.
      Neither do the majority of Independents.

      Oh, and honestly, do you think that the majority of households that either own or are mortgage holders care that much?

      1. Alan mc gee

        Not strictly true Cian.

        FF cared enough to introduce the Shared Ownership scheme 2001 – 2011.

        Labour cared enough to introduce a rent freeze 2015 -2017. Scraped by Eoghan Murphy.

        I’m quite sure most parents and grandparents care very much about their children’s plight and their grandchildrens futures.

        A small cohort of entitled arseholes would not prove the contrary.

  8. rotide

    They’re both right.

    The housing crisis is badly out of control and FG seem completely unable to stop it and this motion is complete oppurtunism politics.

    Anyone who claims either of these points are incorrect is just playing favorites.

  9. Ron

    There is an apathetic feeling that has escalated in the last year. There will be riots on the streets of Dublin is these clowns are allowed to go on like nothing is happening.

Comments are closed.

Sponsored Link
Broadsheet.ie