Dáil housing debate descends into row about corruption
For A Developer Didn't Alleged Fund In Them To Gardens Would Which Sold The Dublin The The Government Be O'devaney From Price Mcdonald Get Flat Lou Plex Of 2019 Set Chaney/collins In Photo:gareth Site A Cuckoo Mary If the
A Dáil debate about housing descended into a heated row between the Taoiseach and the Sinn Féin leader.
Mary Lou McDonald took Micheál Martin to task on the issue of cuckoo funds buying up homes across Ireland. Ms McDonald noted that the developer of the O’Devaney Gardens site in Stoneybatter warned it would sell 500 homes to a cuckoo fund if the Government did not buy them all for a set price.
"If ever there was a salutary tale and lesson of Fianna Fáil in government it's the party of the Galway tent, brown envelopes and a cosy relationship with developers is O'Devaney gardens," Ms McDonald said.
"The reason why this has dragged on and on is because your buddies, who had a public-private partnership arrangement with the State at the time, went bust and let the entire community down.
"Do you believe that the sweetheart tax arrangements with these funds should continue? Because that's your policy in the here and now and it's your policy that's causing so much hardship to an entire generation of people that you have locked out of homeownership and who ensure extortionate rents, that's on your watch."
Mr Martin hit back, claiming Sinn Féin is not in a position to criticise anyone about corruption.
"Your party corrupted public life in this island for years to a far greater degree than any other party in this country," he said.
"You corrupted the moral code of our country in our society by the murder and mayhem that you perpetrated and that you still endorse deputy, are still endorsing. You still support the narrative of murder and mayhem and so forth. And you also support the undermining of women who were raped by IRA volunteers."
He added: “So do not come into this house and lead with your chin, telling everybody else or telling this party that we were corrupt. We had faults and flaws, no doubt about it. But we faced up to it.
“You consistently try and rewrite the narrative and bury the truth of the level of corruption your party engages in.”
Mrs McDonald hit back during his comments, calling them “pathetic” and shouting “Ansbacher”, a reference to the financial scandal that overshadowed Irish politics at the turn of the century.
Mr Martin has repeatedly been forced to defend his Government’s flagship Housing for All policy in the Irish parliament in recent weeks.
He said that on housing, it is the “Sinn Féin way or the high way”.
Mr Martin said the Government approach is “ambitious, and has a very strong delivery mechanism there to get houses built”.