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MINISTER FOR ENTERPRISE Peter Burke has hit back at Sinn Féin’s Pearse Doherty after he likened Burke to Donald Trump for claiming Ireland has reached “record levels” of home ownership.
Doherty has accused Burke of talking from Donald Trump’s playbook after the Fine Gael TD made the claim on RTÉ’s Morning Ireland this morning.
Burke was asked to respond to a report published by Savills’ today which found that population growth in Ireland exceeded the delivery of new homes by almost four to one.
It was put to Burke that Fine Gael “own” the issues in the housing sector, but Burke said this was absolutely not the case.
Burke argued that the Government is now building homes at record levels.
“Don’t listen to politicians, judge the evidence, we are at record levels of home ownership now in this country again and people can see the trajectory to getting the key to their first home now because of the supports we have put in place,” he said.
Responding to these comments this afternoon, Doherty, Sinn Féin’s finance spokesperson, said Burke’s assertion was incorrect and home ownership rates in Ireland have actually been falling.
Doherty told reporters in Dublin: “I heard Peter Burke today. He’s obviously been watching a lot of Donald Trump over the last while because he’s taking from his playbook.
“He claimed in modern Ireland that we have record levels of home ownership. Home ownership under this government has been falling and that is a fact.”
However, Burke doubled down on his comments to The Journal this evening and said investment in housing is at record levels and that his comments during the Morning Ireland interview were “taken out of context”.
When asked by The Journal if he wanted to clarify his comments on Morning Ireland, Burke said: “Investment is at record levels. Homeownership isn’t that far away though either as a percentage”.
Responding to the Trump comparison, Burke said he “doesn’t want to make personal comparisons” but made the point that Trump previously attended a Sinn Féin fundraising event in the 1990s.
He asked how much money Sinn Féin has received from Donald Trump.
The new analysis by Savills found that Ireland is an “outlier” in the severity of its housing supply challenge.
Looking at population growth in comparison with housing delivery between 2015 and 2023, the analysis shows that 3.8 people were added to the population for every one new unit of housing delivered, a ratio of nearly four to one.
It said this is by far the worst among the countries analysed and 14% higher than the next worse country, Spain, which saw 3.4 new people per one new unit delivered, followed by Canada with a ratio of 2.9.
Ireland’s ratio was 80% worse than that of the UK (2.1 ratio) and double that of Australia (1.9 ratio).
“The reports are saying very, very clearly what’s happened here. The amount of homes that are being built is not at the magnitude or the scale that is required in relation to dealing with the crisis that we have,” Doherty said.
“The number of homes that are coming on to the market are a fraction of those that are being built in any given year, because obviously there is a large part of the build-to-rent sector which has been part of that, and other sectors as well.”
With reporting from Cate McCurry, Press Association
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Crazy how many people fall out of windows in Russia.
@Seán Ó Briain: The window was shook by earthly tremors outside and leapt into the room and consumed Maganov who then dutifully fell through said window!
FSB agents passing the hospital ward were witnesses to the event! They quickly left the building in borrowed hospital gowns…
@Seán Ó Briain: defenestration – russians are pros at it
@Johnny Honest: beat me to it!
Hmmmm, there are a lot of Russians dying mysteriously these days.
@Declan Moran:
Slip of the tongue likely.
How does anyone live in a terrorist state?
@Genera L Consensus: we’re going to find out.
@Genera L Consensus: there’s been people living in places like the UK, US and Russia for centuries. More recently. UAE and Saudi. Some seem to be doing quite well.
@John Mulligan: #sad
Those Russian windows are lethal / people forever falling out of them.
Putin !
@Martin Lynch: Put out!
In Soviet Russia, elite hospital kills you.
Severe illness of ground speed.
Amazing this story only appears now!
@Con Cussed: why are you amazed? Because its amazing perhaps?
@Con Cussed: even more amazing that a high profile businessman who’s company publicly opposed the illegal invasion of a neighbouring country, is found to have ‘fallen’ from a hospital window. Considering he was sick,its a pretty amazing, and suspicious thing to have happened.
@Dawn Harvey: Agreed. This is a message to all those who would speak out against Putin. Why would someone who is attending hospital to heal themselves ever commit suicide?
How many FSB/GRU agents were in the room at the time of the event?
They’re quite accident-prone, what with the number of poisonings, window leaping, dropped cigarettes and now missiles that don’t take off. Life expectancy is very short in Russia.
The state-controlled TASS news agency cited an unnamed law enforcement source as saying Maganov had committed suicide by jumping from a sixth-story window after being admitted to the hospital for a heart attack. The news site RBK also said police were investigating the possibility of suicide.
Clearly didnt get the memo on time over at Taas News Agency
@Dave Hammond: most unfortunate the CCTV was closed down for maintenance at time of the incident….!
As, the lyrics go “Did he jump or was he pushed” ?
“Fell” Russian for pushed!!!
Did you hear the one about the Russian journalist that died falling from their ground floor apartment… very clumsy those Russians.
@Dave: too much vodka
Not suspicious in the slightest…..
What no piano being installed this time
Fell out a window. Onto some bullets.
@Colm de Cleir: Found some stab wounds too
He fell ill
Oppps….
The Russians will be announcing tomorrow that they have ‘solved’ the cause if this mysterious death
Jesus the Ukrainians are back from Estonia with their window clearing van. The FSB spotted them again but they were able to escape back across the border.
Hmmmm… was the window made of novichok? Was Vlad Puta standing nearby?
It beats drinking tea!
Roger Podacter suffered a similar fate
Running out of ways to die/disappear ! That individual should not have (novo-checkedin) to that Hospital
Terrible to see and worse not surprising. Who will get the blame, is there another mini cooper in the mix or are the Ninga Window Cleaners at it again.
Strange how all of the antiwr people are having “accidents” and even the prowar putin critics are getting blown up.
The one thing they have in common, they are anti putin.
Running out of ways to die/disappear ! That individual should not have (novo-checkedin) to that Hospital
I’ll bet you any money, not unlike the kerry woman, he was ironing the curtains.
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