Varadkar 'to take ownership' of housing and climate change

Speaking on his first full day as Taoiseach, Mr Varadkar said the speed with which the housing plan is being implemented will be reviewed. 

While he said the country is “making a lot of progress on housing” and “we will meet our housing target this year, build probably 28,000 new homes and that doesn’t even include student accommodation or derelict homes being brought back into use”, the country faces “a very deep housing crisis which is affecting people of all generations in all sorts of different ways”.

Mr Varadkar said that while he believes the Housing for All plan is working, he is keen to discuss it with Housing Minister Darragh O’Brien and those in the housing sector.

“I’m a big supporter of our plan Housing for All,” he said. 

“I’m very close to Darragh O’Brien, our housing minister, but certainly I’m very keen over the next few weeks to sit down as a Government, talk to the people involved in the sector, and see what we can do to accelerate the implementation of that plan and also give consideration to any additional measures that we could take.

“There’s a huge shortage of housing in the country. Everyone knows that.  

I don’t just want us to meet our targets — I want us to exceed them and exceed them by quite a distance and that will obviously make things better.

Mr Varadkar also said that he would use the Taoiseach’s office to oversee the implementation of the Climate Action Plan, due to be published on Wednesday.

Fine Gael sources said that these moves, coupled with Mr Varadkar’s announcement of a unit in his department to tackle childhood poverty, were signs he was “going to be very hands-on” in Government and was “taking ownership of the big issues” such as housing and climate change.

Mr Varadkar was spending his first full day as Taoiseach at a Christmas lunch for 110 Ukrainian refugees organised by the Irish Red Cross and concert promoter Harry Crosbie. 

Mr Varadkar said that he was “very much thinking” of those Ukrainians who are spending their first Christmas in Ireland.

He was elected by the Dáil on Saturday following the resignation of Micheál Martin. 

Mr Varadkar used his speech in the Dáil to pay tribute to the outgoing Taoiseach, saying that he wanted to “take the opportunity to commend Micheál Martin on the leadership he has shown as Taoiseach, for putting the country before politics, and for providing reassurance and hope during difficult times”.

Mr Martin said it had been “both a privilege and a responsibility” to serve as head of Government in a free and democratic republic.

“I have been deeply conscious of this every day I have held the office of taoiseach,” the Fianna Fáil leader said.