Minister for Housing Darragh O’Brien has survived a motion of no confidence tabled against him by the opposition.
The Solidarity-People Before Profit motion was countered by a Government motion of confidence in the minister.
The Government’s motion was passed by 86 votes to 63, with one abstention.
The PBP motion stated that the Dáil “has no confidence in the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage, that his housing policies are creating a catastrophic failure that is tearing apart the social fabric of Irish society, and calls for the minister to be removed from office”.
Taoiseach Micheál Martin opened the debate.
He said that his party colleague Mr O’Brien had “substantially changed the direction of housing policy”, after moving the motion of confidence in Mr O’Brien.
“The plans which Minister O’Brien has developed and is implementing are already making a difference,” he told TDs.
“When you put aside, let’s call it the angry bluster and the populist nonsense, what you see is a hardworking and creative minister who has led his department well in the last two and a half years.
“He has substantially changed the direction of housing policy, introducing a new era of building social and affordable homes and is implementing the first comprehensive programme for action, not just on one or two elements of the housing sector, but on every element.
“And what’s more, this action is starting to work.
“In spite of being directly and personally targeted by opposition parties and their online trolls, he has won every debate on this topic, exposing the vacuum which lies behind the mock anger and book-length emptiness of those who pretend to care about housing, but just see it as another topic to exploit.
He added: “According to this approach, until everything has been achieved, nothing can be acknowledged, and there was no such thing as a complex answer.
“I think it is important for us all to note that… the opposition is not actually in the slightest bit interested in more homes being delivered. The sole reason why we’re having this debate is that they thought it would give them another opportunity to attack the government.”
Minister for Transport and Green Party leader Eamon Ryan told the Dáil that Mr O’Brien’s approach “has been the correct one” and said he did not believe there was “a magic easy alternative”.
“It’s so easy to play it up as ‘You’re at the bad guys we’re the good guys.’
“And the depiction that ‘ministers, if only they’d care, we’d address the housing crisis, if only they had a similar ethics or belief in the people that we do, we’d all be sorted, not a problem’ – in my mind is a false argument that I don’t believe to be true.”
Tánaiste Leo Varadkar claimed the motion had been designed to “embarrass and to personalise what is a deeply important political and societal issue”.
He told TDs that Mr O’Brien was “a good man, a man who cares and a man who is doing everything to turn this situation around”, adding that he “will not be deterred by tonight’s motion and will be back at his desk this evening”.
However, Sinn Féin president Mary-Lou McDonald insisted that the people do not have confidence in the housing minister.
“We have abject failure from a tired government and a Housing Minister clearly out of his depth,” she said.
“Darragh O’Brien has simply recycled the types of policies that got us into this mess in the first place, putting the interests of big developers, wealthy investors and corporate landlords ahead of those in housing need every time.
“This minister is just the latest in a long line of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael housing ministers wedded to the belief that in the end, the market will solve the emergency, and it’s the people who live with the dire consequences of that approach.
“Record house prices, record rent, record homelessness.
“That’s the reality of this government’s housing legacy, that’s Darragh O’Brien’s legacy as Housing Minister.”
Ms McDonald called for a fresh general election, claiming the longer that either Fianna Fáil or Fine Gael are in power, “the worse the housing crisis gets”.
“Housing was the test for this government, and three years on from the election. They have failed that test spectacularly,” she said.
People Before Profit-Solidarity TD Richard Boyd Barret denied the accusation that his party’s motion was a personal attack
He insisted the no-confidence motion was not about Minister O’Brien as an individual or about cynicism.
It was “a desperate attempt to force the Government to acknowledge” its housing policy is “an absolute catastrophe”.
