Social Democrats leader Holly Cairns has said her party would deliver 50,000 homes a year within two years of helping to form the next government.
Ms Cairns outlined the target to delegates at her party conference on Saturday evening and on Sunday told RTÉ she expected a new government to hit it “about two years in” to its term of office.
“Now… we could in government deliver 10,000 affordable homes and 12,000 social homes. At the moment what we’re seeing is about 10,000 social homes and about 1,000 affordable homes. We think we could ramp up to that quite quickly, and by the end of a term, you’d want to be getting to the 50,000, or sooner than that, I would say, about two years in,” she told RTÉ Radio 1′s This Week.
“Ultimately, the Construction Federation of Ireland have said that we’ve capacity to build about 60,000 homes per year, but I think in an environment where broken promises, and overpromising and underdelivering is so apparent, it’s important to make sure we make promises that we can keep, and we think that is necessary and deliverable.”
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Ms Cairns said she will “talk to every party” about a potential coalition government after the next election, though she indicated her preference would be a government without either Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil.
Ms Cairns told RTÉ’s that “some conversations would be longer than others”.
She was speaking in the wake of her party’s annual conference, at which she said “a year of election” gave voters the chance to achieve “change” that would be “seismic”.
Ms Cairns, who became leader of the party unopposed just under a year ago, told delegates attending her first conference as leader in UCD that there was an air of disillusionment in the country because of the Government’s failure to provide basic services to people.
But, she said, “the tide is turning in Irish politics. I can feel it. I think we all can”.
In a speech that dealt with a range of subjects including healthcare, disability services, housing, immigration and the situation in Gaza, Ms Cairns appealed to voters to hear her message of change.
“We won’t engage in auction politics – and promise the sun, moon and stars,” she told delegates at UCD’s O’Reilly Hall. But we will be honest. We will work hard. And we are determined to never lose your trust. Now is the time to effect real and lasting change. We need to seize this opportunity,” Ms Cairns said.
One of the few concrete promises the Social Democrats leader made in the course of her televised leader’s address was that the “full, accelerated implementation of Sláintecare” would be a “red line issue for the Social Democrats in any programme for government”.
Ms Cairns also confronted the idea that “Ireland is full”, increasingly a message pushed by anti-immigration campaigners.
“You have probably heard those voices shout that Ireland is full – that all of the problems we face in housing and health are the cause of a small number of vulnerable migrants,” she said.
“I want to assure you that this is completely and utterly untrue. Ireland is not full, it’s just not working properly. And that can be fixed,” she said to applause.
In a speech that criticised the Government’s performance, especially on housing and disability services, Ms Cairns also singled out what she said was its inaction on the conflict in Gaza, describing it as “genocide”.
“We must stand with the Palestinian people today, tomorrow and always,” she said. “Because in the face of genocide, inaction becomes complicity.”
Ms Cairns sought to encourage new Social Democrats candidates, many of whom were present, by recalling that she won her first election – just five years ago – “by a single vote”.
The televised speech was received enthusiastically by about 250 delegates, who gave Ms Cairns a mid-speech standing ovation for her comments demanding action from the Government on Gaza.
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Ms Cairns, a first time TD for Cork South-West, said she had never taken her own re-election “for granted”.
“I try to work as hard as I possibly can, and hope that people feel like it was worthwhile taking that leap of faith [in me] and I continue to work to try to keep people’s trust,” she said.
Former co-leaders Catherine Murphy and Róisín Shortall both said at present they intended to run again in the next general election.
“I could get knocked over by a bus, as of today that’s the plan [standing for re-election], and I’ll be trying to make sure I don’t get knocked over by a bus,” Ms Murphy said.
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