There were heated exchanges between Taoiseach Micheál Martin and Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald in a Dáil row about the housing crisis.
Mr Martin, speaking in Irish, accused Ms McDonald of “telling lies” (“ag insint bréaga”) as she raised questions about the Government’s proposals for possible alternatives to rent pressure zones (RPZs).
Their row came after two hours of debate on a Labour Party motion calling for a “radical reset of housing policy”.
Ms McDonald had said the Taoiseach had announced he would “remove rent pressure zones in order to encourage private investment in housing” and “remove the only modest protection afforded to renters”, leaving them at the mercy of “greedy landlords”.
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She claimed the Government was singing from the “same hymn sheet as the lobby groups for big institutional property funds”.
And she added that Fianna Fáil was “being led by the nose by lobbyists, defending the interests of big property funds, housing policy being shaped again by those who stand to make massive profit”.
Mr Martin in his response said “normal service” had resumed and the Opposition’s misrepresentation “goes on and on”.
He said the only people he spoke to about housing policy were his own officials. But he listed a range of companies and lobby groups Sinn Féin’s housing spokesman Eoin Ó Broin had listed on the lobbying register as having met.
He claimed Sinn Féin was attempting to “smear” him and the Government.
Ms McDonald said Mr Martin “called me a liar” and the party’s finance spokesman Pearse Doherty said he was “taking advantage of” Ceann Comhairle Verona Murphy not speaking Irish.
Ms Murphy asked the Taoiseach if he would withdraw his remark if he had made that accusation against Ms McDonald but he said he did not call Ms McDonald a liar “as Béarla” (in English).
Calling someone a “liar” or claiming they are “telling lies”, is considered unparliamentary language and speakers are asked to withdraw such claims.
The Ceann Comhairle said “I can’t rule on what I didn’t hear” but she said they could look back on the recording.
Earlier the Labour Party accused the Government of “successive ill-thought-out interventions” in housing policy that will “only serve to line the pockets of property developers and institutional investors”.
In their Private Member’s motion, party housing spokesman Conor Sheehan echoed the Housing Commission’s call for a “radical reset in housing policy”, which he said the Government has “by and large conveniently ignored”.
The Government’s policy “is not working and they have resorted to the old reliable of ill-thought-out tax cuts for property developers.
“It’s like Fianna Fáil are a mere step away from heralding the return of the Galway tent.”
He said the Government’s counter to his motion “could have been written by ChatGPT”.
The party also called for the State to play a “greater, more active and more interventionist” role, which should increase the supply of social and affordable housing, and not “turbocharge already inflated prices and rents”.
Minister of State Christopher O’Sullivan, standing in for Minister for Housing James Browne, who was attending a Cabinet meeting, said that “in reality key decision-making is vested in local authorities” and it was within their remit to supply housing.
Mr O’Sullivan said Labour has been ”constructive in providing solutions” and in “many areas we do have shared ambition of ending homelessness and increasing housing supply”.
“It’s how we get to these targets we differ,” he said, adding he disagreed with calls to end the help-to-buy scheme by those who claim it is inflationary.
The Minister of State said scaling up to 60,000 homes a year would be a challenge, but “we will rise to that challenge”.
Eoin Ó Broin said if the senior Minister could not attend they should “have the courtesy to contact the proposer of motion and that policy should be recommenced”.
He noted the Minister’s comments that local authorities make decisions on public housing in their area but said “that is just not true”.
He said the Department of Housing sets the target, funding and funding approvals.
“The level of micromanagement by officials in the Custom House on everything down to where windows and skirting boards go” is one of the largest causes of delay, he said.
