Simon Coveney ‘requested’ housing challenge

Newly appointed Housing Minister Simon Coveney has denied he has been given a “poisoned chalice” and in fact requested the portfolio.

Mr Coveney, who has been tasked with finding immediate resolutions to the housing crisis as well as handling the issue of water charges, has denied he was demoted by Enda Kenny.

The Cork South-Central TD said: “The idea that I was given a poisoned chalice to cut me down to size would make sense if I hadn’t asked for it. Maybe it will damage me, maybe it won’t. I don’t intend to be in politics forever, but while I am, I want to take on issues that can change (for the better) people’s lives.”

It had been reported that both Mr Coveney and Social Protection Minister Leo Varadkar, who are both seen as the top contenders to take over as Fine Gael leader, had been demoted by Mr Kenny when choosing a cabinet on Friday.

Mr Kenny is now due to publish the full programme for government in coming days and will also announce his selection of junior ministers.

Those tipped for positions include Eoghan Murphy, Josepha Madigan, John Paul Phelan, Helen McEntee, and Sean Kyne. John Halligan and Sean Canney of the Independent Alliance are to receive appointments.

Speaking to the Irish Examiner, Mr Coveney admitted housing was “a more dramatic challenge”, albeit one he had actively sought out. “I wanted a social portfolio as well as an economic one,” he said.

Mr Coveney said while he could have sought “a different brief that could have been less heated politically,” he was not one to shirk challenges.

He said suggestions either himself or Mr Varadkar had been demoted or moved sideways in their new briefs was “totally inaccurate”.

“The idea that the Taoiseach deliberately put us into departments to keep us busy and to keep us quiet is nonsense,” he said.

The minister said he was looking forward to tackling the housing and homelessness problem, and that one of his first acts will be to meet with all local authority chiefs executive, as well as stakeholders in the voluntary and private housing sectors, to start mapping out how to build a sustainable partnership that could help resolve the current crisis.

He said some local authorities, particularly Cork and Dublin, would have to deliver more to address the housing crisis, and that they would need “budgets from me and probably legislation… to fast track the type of housing policies that are needed”.

“Whether that’s a change in planning laws, we’ll have to see,” he said.

In relation to Irish Water, which is also part of his portfolio, Mr Coveney said legislation to suspend water charges would be in place within six weeks.

“We need to try and take the temperature out of the water debate and make an informed decision,” he said

Mr Coveney said personally, he didn’t believe paying for water centrally was the best way to go, but that it was his job to find consensus.

“The last government failed to build consensus. It’s my job now to try… maybe I have a bit of a deathwish, I don’t know.”

Meanwhile, new chief whip Regina Doherty has denied that this new era of legislation through cross-party consensus and numerous new committees would lead to paralysis with little being implemented.

“I am willing and open to listen to everyone’s views but they have to be put respectfully and I do have to genuinely say there are some people in Leinster House who are pretty arrogant with their views because they might disagree with me, and that apparently makes me wrong. I am not wrong, they are not wrong,” she said.

“We all need to work together and if we find consensus on legislation then that legislation will be better,” she said.