Government backing policy that will create 'mass homelessness' 

Taoiseach Leo Varadkar said Sinn Féin's motion to extend eviction ban was 'a show motion from showboaters'. Picture: Gareth Chaney/ Collins Photos

The Government is accused of deliberately backing a policy that will create “mass homelessness”, with the Taoiseach branding Sinn Féin “showboaters” as the eviction ban dominated Leaders’ Questions in the Dáil.

Ahead of the vote around Sinn Féin’s motion to extend the eviction ban beyond March 31, there were more testy exchanges between the Government and opposition benches on the issue.

Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald said TDs had a clear choice to make and urged them to “stand with Ireland’s renters”, while urging the Government “to do the right thing”.

Taoiseach Leo Varadkar told the Sinn Féin leader the Government would do the right thing and accused Ms McDonald of being “disingenuous” for her comments about the end of the eviction ban.

“You’re stoking additional anxieties and fears for people who have enough to worry about as it is,” he said.

Mr Varadkar also said Sinn Féin had voted for the eviction ban, which was intended to be temporary in nature.

On the motion, he added: “It’s a show motion from showboaters. It’s not going to pass. Even if it did, it would have no practical effect and you know that.” 

Ms McDonald, however, accused the Government of “dithering and failure” and of putting forward policies that would not help those at risk of homelessness in the coming months.

“Your biggest failure of all is to give young people a fair shot,” she said. “It’s delay, delay, delay. 

When it comes to 3,000 households now facing the loss of their home, there’s no delay there. The message to them is you are on your own.” 

Social Democrats leader Holly Cairns began by asking the Taoiseach “when did it begin to go wrong” for Fine Gael’s housing policy.

She then listed events through the years such as the promise to end the use of hotels for families in emergency accommodation or when it was revealed vulture funds were buying whole housing estates.

“With so many years of bad Fine Gael decision-making, it’s not surprising," she said. "You’ve never made the right decision on housing, why would you start now?” 

Mr Varadkar said he acknowledged the country was facing a “very serious housing crisis and emergency affecting people in all different ways”.

He said there was a housing deficit of 250,000 units and there were “many reasons” this was the case.

“We’ve a mountain to climb,” he said. “We’re climbing it step by step.” 

He said more social homes were built last year than any other year since 1975 and that, in January 2023, there were more first-time buyers since those details were first compiled in 2010. He said those were signs of progress being made.

Ms Cairns said Government housing policy had for nine years been “going in circles rather than turning corners”.

Mr Varadkar told the Social Democrats leader not to misquote him, and said the Tánaiste was correct in recent comments about turning the corner on new-home construction.