TD accuses the Government of ‘sabotaging' its housing policy
A further 2,500 homes have been delayed until concerns about value for money are resolved.
Responding to the rising furore at the weekend, Taoiseach Micheál Martin said the cost of the almost 3,000 social homes which were to be delivered, and have now been delayed, were so high that if they had gone ahead, the Minister for Housing would have been 'up before the Public Accounts Committee'. Social Democrats TD Rory Hearne has accused the Government of sabotaging its own housing strategy. Pic: Stephen Collins/Collins Photos
Mr Hearne, the Social Democrats' housing spokesman, said that as the Government talks of an 'emergency', its 'actions, cutting key housing projects, suspending funding and gutting homelessness prevention schemes, tell a very different story'.
Mr Hearne said the Government had already lost €8million on developing the projects.
He called on Minister James Browne to explain, saying: 'How the hell were social housing projects that were about to start on site pulled at the last minute? Minister Browne said: 'I am determined to deliver these homes, and we are assessing the quickest way to do this while ensuring value for taxpayers' money.' Pic: Sam Boal/Collins Photo
'It is beyond comprehension. We talk about incompetence; this has gone from incompetence to sabotage.'
Minister Browne said: 'I am determined to deliver these homes, and we are assessing the quickest way to do this while ensuring value for taxpayers' money.'
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Journal
42 minutes ago
- The Journal
Labour Chancellor Rachel Reeves in tears after criticism over major welfare reform u-turn
LABOUR CHANCELLOR RACHEL Reeves appeared to cry in the Commons this afternoon as British prime minister Keir Starmer declined to guarantee she would remain in place until the election. Starmer faced MPs at Prime Minister's Question after being forced to scrap key planks of his welfare reforms. The welfare u-turn has left an almost £5 billion (€5.8b) black hole in Reeves's spending plans and has fuelled speculation she could be forced to hike taxes. Tory leader Kemi Badenoch said Reeves looked 'absolutely miserable' and challenged Starmer to say whether the Chancellor would keep her job until the next election. Watch as Chancellor Rachel Reeves sheds tears during Prime Minister's Questions 📽️ — The National (@ScotNational) July 2, 2025 Starmer dodged the question about whether Reeves would be in place for the remainder of the UK Parliament, saying Badenoch 'certainly won't'. The Tory leader said: 'How awful for the Chancellor that he couldn't confirm that she would stay in place.' Despite Starmer not backing her in the Commons, Downing Street insisted she was 'going nowhere' and had the prime minister's 'full backing'. Asked about Reeves's tears, a spokesman for the Chancellor said it was a 'personal matter'. Welfare u-turn Welfare spending in the UK stood at £40billion before the Covid pandemic but is projected to skyrocket to £100 billion by 2030. In March, reforms to the UK's welfare system – aimed at encouraging more people off sickness benefits and into work – were announced. The aim was to make welfare savings of £4.8 billion by 2029-30. But yesterday, Starmer was forced to abandon a key plank of his welfare reform package in the face of a Labour rebellion. Advertisement The climbdown came just 90 minutes before MPs were due to vote for the first time on the Universal Credit and Personal Independence Payment (Pip) Bill. Universal Credit is a means-tested benefit that replaced and combined six 'legacy' benefits – it is paid to those looking for work, unable to work due to illness or disability, those on a low income or those with caring responsibilities. Meanwhile, Pip is a payment for people who have extra care needs or mobility needs as a result of a disability. With around 1,000 new Pip awards every day, the UK Government argued the current situation was unsustainable. Proposals to cut the health element of universal credit by almost 50% for most new claimants from April 2026 remains in place following yesterday's u-turn. However, the UK Government shelved plans to restrict eligibility for the Pip and any changes will now only come after a review of the benefit, which is due to conclude in the autumn of 2026. The move caused a major headache for Reeves as the welfare squeeze was originally meant to save £4.8 billion a year, which was subsequently reduced to £2.3 billion when the Bill was first watered down last week. But after another concession yesterday, it is uncertain how much the reforms will save from the soaring welfare bill, if anything. Indeed, the Resolution Foundation think tank suggested the concessions meant there would now be no 'net savings' from the reform by the end of the decade. The Bill changed so much in the interim that MPs questioned if there was even any point in voting on it. Tory leader Kemi Badenoch accused Labour of 'utter capitulation' and said the legislation was now 'pointless'. She said: 'They should bin it, do their homework, and come back with something serious. Starmer cannot govern.' A previous effort to kill the Bill had attracted more than 120 Labour supporters, but was dropped after the first partial u-turn on the legislation last week. And in yesterday's vote, Starmer faced a revolt of almost 50 MPs despite the changes, with the legislation clearing its first parliamentary hurdle by 335 votes to 260, a majority of 75. -With additional reporting by Diarmuid Pepper
Irish Examiner
an hour ago
- Irish Examiner
Unicef calls on Government to help evacuate injured children from Gaza hospitals
Orphaned children are experiencing the "repeated horror" of being targeted and bereaved multiple times under Israel's bombardment, forced starvation, and denial of water to Palestinians. That is according to Unicef's James Elder, who has called on the Irish Government to press for the emergency evacuation of thousands of wounded children who are now being treated without pain relief. Mr Elder raised the harrowing story of a six-year-old girl he met in recent weeks, whose pink painted nails struck him amid "all the horrors" of Gaza. "This little girl, I saw her because her fingernails were perfectly painted, perfectly manicured. It just struck me, so I walked over to speak to her. "Dana's story was that in November 2023, so more than 18 months ago, there was a missile strike on her home — horrifyingly standard," he told the Irish Examiner. "That missile strike killed Dana's mum and dad and it killed her siblings. She went to live with her aunts and uncles, but such was her level of trauma, she didn't speak for six months, but such was their level of care that they started to bring back a little bit of childhood in this little girl, and she started coming back to life in all forms of a child's life. "Now she was in hospital, and I saw her just a few weeks ago because the home she was staying in was struck by a missile in the middle of the night — just like her home had been 18 months ago — again, killing 10 members of her family, cousins and aunts and uncles. "She had escaped injury in her first home, had great degrees of mental trauma, but escaped physical injury in her first attack. Now she had shrapnel in her head. "I suddenly realised that all these horrors that have occurred to children that I never thought I would see at this scale, those children who somehow survived them, they're not safe. They can now have a repeat experience of some unimaginable event." Mr Elder, who is on a three-day visit to Dublin as Unicef's global spokesperson, acknowledged the compassion of the Irish public, but made a plea to the Government to put pressure on international counterparts to allow aid to flow and to increase medical evacuations from the enclave. "I met children who needed medical evacuation several weeks ago, and by the time I left Gaza, they had died utterly unnecessarily. "There is such a severe lack of painkillers that you would hear children as well as see them and that's a very difficult thing, particularly for parents who are beside themselves with grief as to how they help a child who literally has had 5mls of painkiller an entire day and has fourth-degree burns on their body."
Irish Independent
3 hours ago
- Irish Independent
Harris says he's not convinced there's a need for a ‘significant rise in the dole'
Fine Gael leader Simon Harris said that he was not convinced there was a need for a 'significant rise in the dole', when the country is at near full employment, compared with pension rises. He said he was keeping an 'open mind' in relation to Budgetary measures, saying there is 'only so much money in the pot'. He was speaking amid a Government row over student fee changes. Speaking to reporters today, Mr Harris said: 'I do always think there's merit in not looking at social welfare payments with a uniformity across the board because, you know, we've been talking a lot about college fees in the last couple of days, unexpectedly perhaps. 'But roughly speaking, the equivalent of €1.20/€1.25 on every social welfare payment is roughly the equivalent of reducing the college fees by €1,000. 'So budgets are all about choices, they're all about balance, and there's only so much money in the pot.' He added: 'I'm not convinced that you need to see as significant a rise in the dole as you do in the pension, for example, at a time when our country is in full employment, when there's lots of supports out there for people getting into work, when there's other supports out there for people who can't work for very many good reasons. 'That's my view. We'll thrash all this out in the Budget.'
