The Social Democrats will use their private members time next week to bring a motion of no confidence in the Minister for Housing, Planning and Local Government, Eoghan Murphy TD, to the floor of the Dáil.
Speaking as they confirmed the motion for next week, Catherine Murphy TD said:
“Our housing situation has gone beyond a crisis and has been an emergency for a long time. This Minister and this Government have abjectly failed Irish families, our communities and our economy in not getting to grips with the chronic lack of housing that is affordable to buy or rent.
“The Minister’s trots out his plan – Rebuilding Ireland – but he can’t even meet the tame targets set in that plan. It is failure upon failure. And the consequences for real people are appalling.
Roisín Shortall TD, co-leader of the Social Democrats said:
“This Minister and this Government have relied on ‘the market’ to provide solutions to our housing emergency. Under Minister Eoghan Murphy’s watch housing has been even more unaffordable to buy or to rent. An entire generation of people are now locked out of affordable and secure housing.
“Enough is enough. Average rents are 8% higher than last year. Homelessness has gone up 354% since 2014. This means that 10,397 people – including 3,873 children – are homeless. This is a stain on Ireland. And the responsibility lies at the door of this Minister and this Government. It is time for him to go.”
On almost every door in the by-elections, our candidates in Cork North Central, Dublin Mid West and Dublin Fingal hear the same story of an emergency in housing.
Anne-Marie McNally said “in the Dublin Mid West by-election we have Minister Murphy working as Director of Elections for the Fine Gael candidate. I’m talking to people constantly in Dublin Mid West and there are many family homes where three generations are living together because people can’t afford a home of their own. Government failures mean that whole generations are likely to be locked out of ever affording their own home for their family. This is not a way to build a healthy society. it strikes me that the Minister for Housing should be spending all his time focused on his housing brief rather than electioneering during a housing emergency of this magnitude.”
Tracey Carey, the Party’s by-election candidate in Fingal said “voters in Fingal tell me of the raw deal their children and grandchildren face. It was a reasonable aspiration to be able to save up and own your own home. This dream is rapidly dying for so many. We are better than this”.
Sinéad Halpin in Cork North Central said “young families here in Cork tell me that they can’t afford to buy a house and they have no security in renting, and that their rents take an ever-increasing portion of their take home pay. This Minister and this Government should be ashamed of the plight they have put so many families in.”
ENDS
27th November 2019