Mary Lou McDonald lodges official complaint over Taoiseach's 'lies' comment

Mary Lou McDonald said Fianna Fáil is being led by the interests of property funds and continuing with an approach that has 'failed abysmally.'

The Sinn Féin leader has lodged an official complaint with the Ceann Comhairle, after the Taoiseach accused her of telling lies in the Dáil.

Speaking in Irish, Micheál Martin hit out at Mary Lou McDonald for “telling lies again”, stating that the opposition leader was “ag insint bréaga arís” on the topic of housing — a term which is considered to be unparliamentary language.

There were heated exchanges followed by confusion from the Ceann Comhairle Verona Murphy in the Dáil when Ms McDonald asked that Mr Martin withdraw the accusation.

However, Ms Murphy was unable to fully adjudicate on the matter as she is not an Irish speaker.

Ms Murphy asked Mr Martin to withdraw the comment “if you made those remarks, I am not aware that you did”.

Sinn Féin TD Pearse Doherty then claimed Mr Martin was taking advantage of the fact that Ms Murphy would not understand the comments he made in Irish.

Taking to her feet amid shouts from various TDs, Ms Murphy said: “I can’t rule on what I didn’t hear. I accept that [Ms McDonald] believes it was said. The Taoiseach has said that he has not said it.”

Ms McDonald has now submitted a written complaint to the Ceann Comhairle which accuses the Taoiseach of making “a baseless accusation that I was ‘telling lies’... I absolutely refute that this was the case.”

She said that she had “rightly” challenged Mr Martin and asked Ms Murphy to request that the matter is formally followed up and that the Taoiseach withdraw his remark in the Dáil at the earliest opportunity.

Leading up to the row, Ms McDonald claimed Mr Martin was “singing from the same hymn sheet as the lobby groups for big institutional property funds” in an interview with the Irish Examiner last Saturday when he said: “There’s been a tendency in the debate in Ireland to attack funds”.

The Sinn Féin leader said Fianna Fáil is being led by the interests of property funds and continuing with an approach that has “failed abysmally”.

Mr Martin himself was accused of “lies of omission” by Social Democrats deputy leader Cian O’Callaghan who said: “At no stage did the Taoiseach tell the public that he wanted to get rid of rent pressure zones and drive up rents.”

Mr O’Callaghan claimed Mr Martin has been spinning a story of success and a plan that was working just three months ago during the general election campaign.

“Now members of the Government are briefing the media that they are at the last-chance saloon, and that they need to make drastic changes to have any chance of meeting the Government’s targets,” Mr O’Callaghan said.

Mr Martin denied announcing the end of Rent Pressure Zones (RPZs) but rather said that it would be reviewed. 

With the legislation for RPZs due to expire at the end of this year, Mr Martin said there would be an examination of adopting the German system or reference pricing.