LIMERICK TD Conor Sheehan was this week announced as the Labour Party’s Deputy Whip and front bench party spokesperson for Housing, Local Government, and Heritage.
Labour Party leader Ivana Bacik said that the 11 TDs and two Senators elected to the Oireachtas will continue to campaign to build a fairer, more equal Ireland at national level.
Fresh-faced first-time Labour TD Conor Sheehan came out guns blazing after his appointment as housing spokesperson, hitting out at the lack of ambition or vision in the Programme for Government when it comes to housing.
“There’s been no shortage of spin and bluster from this government when it comes to housing. Rather than charting a new way forward to deal with the housing disaster, it offers more of the same,” the 31-year-old Corbally politician commented.
Deputy Sheehan is of the opinion that the Programme for Government does not contain anything remotely resembling a radical reset in housing policy, as was called for in the Housing Commission report.
Sign up for the weekly Limerick Post newsletter
“The Programme for Government offers little in the way of hope for renters, people on housing lists or families languishing in hotels,” he hit out.
“Fine Gael’s attitude seems to be leave it to Fianna Fáil, and in turn, Fianna Fáil are attempting to pull a David Blaine style illusion, promising 40,000 homes a year in the run up to the election, when the reality is just 30,350, revealed after the fact.”
The Limerick Labour TD continued that “the Taoiseach and the then Minister for Housing, Darragh O’Brien, chose to ignore the warnings from the CSO, the ESRI, and the Central Bank that completion figures would be nowhere near 40,000 and continued parroting that figure because it was the most convenient for them. There is no doubt in my mind that it benefitted them in the election, but it was a deception. Not alone did the Taoiseach and Minister deceive this House, but they deceived the public.”
Deputy Sheehan maintains that the Programme for Government commits to delivering 300,000 homes a year by 2030 with scant detail of how this will be achieved.
“We’re to just believe that it will happen. Just as we were to believe 40,000 homes would be built last year. Within the seven pages dedicated to housing in the Programme for Government, there is no stated commitment to examine any of the key recommendations from the Housing Commission, the government’s own independent body, which they have decided to effectively pretend doesn’t exist.
“Ultimately, the issue lies with policy. This new government must change tack. The Housing Commission was clear – only a radical reset of housing policy will work.”
Deputy Sheehan concluded that “the State has to take a much more active and interventionist approach if we are to solve the housing crisis. Only the State has deep enough pockets to underwrite the level of housing this country needs.”
