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THE GOVERNMENT AND Sinn Féin have faced off yet again over housing the Dáil, with Pearse Doherty and Tánaiste Micheál Martin trading barbs over housing targets and policies.
Martin was standing in for Taoiseach Leo Varadkar during Leaders’ Questions, and he was grilled over the Government’s record on housing by the Sinn Féin finance spokesperson.
Doherty started his questioning by referencing a woman “who has a good job at a Dublin hospital” but cannot find a place to live.
“The person is in their 30s, they have a good salary, but she can’t find a single place to live that is somewhat even reasonable,” he said.
“And this person tells us that they are completely hopeless,” he said.
She says that the situation they and so many of her generation face has been created by successive governments allowing the few to profit off her generation and lock them out of any sense of stability.
Doherty said he agreed with this assessment and that the Government was “failing” to provide people with affordable homes. He said that Government housing targets and investment were too low.
Doherty also stated that targets on Government spending and social housing were not being met.
“By June of this year, only 15% of the social homes that were promised had been delivered and only 123 out of the 4,400 affordable homes that were promised had been delivered,” he said.
Doherty stated that this and other targets not being met meant that the Government’s plan was “failing”.
Martin’s response
In response, the Tánaiste defended the Government’s housing plan and attacked Sinn Féin’s record in Opposition.
“I would say to your deputy that you’re wrong,” he said.
And no shouting and roaring is going to change the fact that this government has significantly turned the dial in relation to house construction in terms of over 30,000 houses constructed last year, and we will exceed targets again this year.
He also said the Government had delivered 30,000 new social homes since 2020, and would continue to ramp up construction. Martin said commencements and completions of housing were also up on last year, and said that Sinn Féin had no comprehensive housing plan in place.
“You have nothing but a collection of sound bites and a few pages,” he said.
You haven’t put in the hard work.
Martin also criticised Sinn Féin on its record for assisting first time buyers and with the Help to Buy Scheme, saying it did not support young people.
Back and forth
In response, Doherty said:
“The Government’s response to any of the crisis that we point out to the government is ‘but, but but, Sinn Féin’. That’s the sum up to you,” he said.
That we’ve stopped all of this, that we’re the fault for a housing crisis despite the fact that your partners in government have been in government for 12 years.
He said it was time the Government took “its head out of the sand” and that people had lost any hope that they will be able to afford a home.
“The dogs in the street know that the targets you have set are too low,” he said, stating that the Government had failed to meet its social and affordable housing targets.
“You’re wrong,” said Martin in response, with Doherty shouting across the chamber: “Explain to me how I’m wrong.”
At this point Leas Ceann Comhairle Catherine Connolly rang the bell and intervened to call for “a bit of respect”.
“Shouting is not a policy, and shout and roaring doesn’t deal with the substance of this issue,” Martin said in response, before laying out the Government’s figures on first-time buyers and house purchases over the past year, and once again criticising Sinn Féin’s record.
“Do you want me to whisper it to you? Explain to me how I’m wrong,” Doherty said.
“You are anti-first time buyer,” Martin said, before Doherty got the last word:
“You have missed every single target and your government’s making things worse. Time to get your head out of the sand,” he said, before Connolly once again called for calm.
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How bout the Gardai do the analysis, arrest the gangsters and let the Central Bank do the regulatory job they should have been doing before they helped to land us in the sh*t?
The Irish Bull, well said. That would require these agencies to focus on what might loosely be called their “competencies” and functions.
Iceland produced a full transparent investigative report , of about 3,000 pages, in 6 months. The US Report was almost equally fast.
Gardai aren’t being given the necessary resources
Philip, An Garda Siochana has a prioritisation of resources problem.
Peter no the gardai havent being given extra resources, manpower, expertise to deal with the banking investigation
The tapes should have been seized from day one so that they couldn’t be altered or distroyed in anyway … I would imagine that any off the tapes that are Linking government officials pass and present already have been….
Because perhaps the senior officers in An Garda Siochana are part of the same clique? With an example being when Gemma o Doherty went to Martin Callinan’s house to ask him to confirm he had points quashed she was sacked from the Independent and while it has been reported in Canada and Britain, not one Irish media outlet has highlighted it, because we have such a fair society in this country!!
If ever a situation called for the Criminal Assets Bureau, this is it.
It won’t matter if it is Anglo or the Central Bank, those are the people who should be taking control of the investigation into this national sabotage.
The concept of “without prejudice basis” has no application in criminal investigations. The Central Bank of Ireland Governor is talking through his ars*.
That talking through his ars* seems a common complaint for bankers Peter.
Kerry, lol! True.
“The Central Bankers are the arsonists of this crisis, who pose as firefighters”
Detlev Schlickter (Author: Paper Money Collapse)
I think you’ll find it’s “talking through your Drummer” in polite society.
Sean, interesting quotation and I think not far off the mark.
Just re-read the cited and supported criticisms of the Irish Central Bank on Wikipedia under the heading criticisms. It’s a pretty sad indictment of incompetence and conflict of interest.
Watch this space Peter.
There has been a perception to date of the Central banks as benevolent or benign. Neither view is correct. There ruthless interventions on behalf of the most delinquent commercial banks has been shameless and not just in Europe.
I believe history will point the finger at the world’s largest central banks for the current crisis and there culpability will become more evident in the near future (I believe).
“Thailand’s economy developed into an economic bubble fueled by hot money. More and more was required as the size of the bubble grew. The same type of situation happened in Malaysia, and Indonesia, which had the added complication of what was called “crony capitalism”. The short-term capital flow was expensive and often highly conditioned for quick profit. Development money went in a largely uncontrolled manner to certain people only, not particularly the best suited or most efficient, but those closest to the centers of power.”
This is an excerpt from an article on the Asian Financial Crisis of 1997, but if the names were changed it could just as easily be referring to Ireland and Greece. The Euro crisis is not unique. Similar crisis have occurred several times in recent decades (Similar cause and similar effect).
Both Thailand and Brazil instigated capital controls to prevent an in-flood of western currencies in the wake of the current crisis. This may seem counter-intuitive as normally nations instigate capital controls to prevent outflows of currency, but both Brazil and Thailand have learned from bitter experience the consequences of monetary expansion.
Schlichter’s book is well worth a read, if you want to understand the real causes of this crisis.
Thanks Sean. Well informed comment. I’ll look up that book.
Sean, I will certainly read Detlev Schlichter’s book. I age. That Central Banks are not promoters of the public good.
A curious thing happened in Ireland. In our 1937 Constitution the Directives on Social Policy required the control of credit in the paramount protection of the public interest as an imperative.
In 1942 the Central Bank Act 1942 established the Central Bank of Ireland. In Section 6 the Constitutional imperative was enacted as a statutory obligation.
In 1998 a very strange thing happened. The explicit statutory duty to control, credit was repealed. Section 5 of the Central Bank Act 1998 replaced with a rather vague function of seeking financial stability. Sections 6 and 7 of the later Central Bank and Financial Reform Act slightly expanded on the statutory functions of the Central Bank and the newly established IFSRA but did not reinstate the statutory duty to control credit in the public interest.
There are many other oddities including the joint co-operation of the Department of Finance and the Central Bank of Ireland in killing the recommendation of a separate and independent Financial Regulator.
There are many other disturbing features of the killing of credit control in Ireland.
In addition, the IBF pampered, corporately entertained and treated the upper ranks of the CBI royally. There there was the mutual back scratching of cross overs between the upper ranks of the CBI and of the Irish Banks.
Restrictions on credit expansion were removed prior to the launch of the Euro because the intention (or hope the euro’s architects) was that the euro would replace the dollar as the global reserve currency.
This required that Europes banks compete more aggresively with the US to recycle sovereign wealth funds (mainly OPEC wealth). The price of achieving a reserve status euro currency was a populace willing to take on more debt. This happened at a time when Germany and France were in recession and there populations were more adverse to taking on debt. The rest is history.
Colin Nunan offers some insights here:
http://www.feasta.org/documents/review2/nunan.htm
Sean, that is both interesting and informative.
After he’s pulled them out of his a*se
That expression is becoming a bit tired. Does it have to be used in every bank related comment?
I know Drummer well, and never once heard him use that phrase.
The Central Bank of Ireland was grossly unfit for purpose and it remains unfit for purpose.
We need a functioning and competent Regulator.
The Central Bank IN Ireland should be ran out of the country and its staff arrested for gross treason.
A truly national central bank outside of any ECB control is what is needed but our civil servants and politicians cannot even conceive this concept.
Control our own money supply and we will thrive.
Ah aren’t they great!
Let’s hope the Garda are more proactive in dealing with the scam inflicted on the irish public. Let’s hope they understand the word ENTRAPMENT .
Why don’t we furnish CBI with an independent foreign body, CBIs forensic department is clearly overwhelmed and we should be willing to help out.
I’m sure Interpol has officers available who have done this before.
I mean, not listening to evidence, then announcing you’re going to share such evidence with the police, all the while saying “nothing to see here”. Well, if it was me I’d have to say, “thanks lads, I was a bit stressed there”.
So, who thinks we should shell out for independent help for CBI, the folks at Interpol are waiting.
Green=yes
Red=no
GO!
What makes you sure Interpol could or would?
The book deal must be done !?
Does Honahan have pics of Enda naked or something
Its going to be the blind leading the blind.
What’s this “will share” business about? Is there absolutely no sense of urgency or timeliness about any of this?
“Analysis” not the tapes themselves. What are you hiding Honohan?
He should hand himself in at his local station for economic treason after giving our future over for the banking ponzi scheme, which he is well aware of, and has not changed one bit to this very day.
This guy is full of BS. He has already aid that it was not the Central Banks job to analyse these recordings yet he is now going to share this “analysis” with the Gardai. Am I missing something here because after all this is the institution that is responsible for directing the banks regarding the mortgage crisis. We need a regulator for the regulator
They have had
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