Pressure to reveal cost of ‘grubby deal’ on evictions

Demand for full details on €12m sweetener for Regional Independents

PRESSURE is mounting on the Government to reveal the full cost of a ‘grubby deal’ it agreed to secure the support of a group of Independent TDs to end the eviction ban.

Labour Party TD Ged Nash said revelations by the Irish Daily Mail earlier this week show that ‘there is just no depths that this Government will not plunge, to keep themselves afloat and in office’.

On Thursday, this newspaper revealed that part of the deal to secure the votes of the Regional Independent Group (RIG) of TDs could cost up to €12million.

Mr Nash, who called the agreement a ‘grubby deal’, said the Labour Party put forward a no-confidence motion in the

Government in March last year ‘for its failure to protect renters, its failure to grapple with the housing crisis, and its failure to give renters the security of a roof over their head’.

The Government majority at the time was wafer-thin, after Green Party TDs Patrick Costello and Neasa Hourigan lost the party whip for voting against the Coalition over the ownership of the National Maternity Hospital. And there was speculation some Coalition TDs could vote against the plan to end the eviction ban.

Had the vote failed, it was likely the Government would have collapsed, triggering an election.

Mr Nash insisted ‘the public have a right’ to know the costs involved in securing the RIG votes and demanded ‘that this Government own up to how it’s spending people’s hard-earned money’. He said: ‘The dubious deal this conservative Coalition made with the Government proxies in the Regional Group cost us at least €12million. The Government must publish the full details of this plan immediately.’

Minister for Housing Darragh O’Brien brokered the deal with the RIG – which consists of

Independent TDs Michael Lowry, Denis Naughten, Cathal Berry, Peter Fitzpatrick, Matt Shanahan, Verona Murphy, Noel Grealish and Peadar Tóibín – in a bid to get them to vote with the Government.

Health Minister Stephen Donnelly then forced through changes to the Fair Deal scheme – which helps people partly pay for private nursing home care – that were demanded by the RIG, in a deal agreed with Darragh

O’Brien. The scheme allows applicants to rent out their homes – tax-free – to help with costs. The RIG demanded that the amount of money left untaxed be increased from 60% to 100%.

Mr Donnelly sanctioned the changes despite warnings from his department’s secretarygeneral, Robert Watt, that it would provide ‘little new rental supply’, risked undermining the ‘financial stability’ of the scheme and could create problems ‘providing adequate care provision in the future’. The concession to the RIG was one of eight emergency housing measures demanded.

Speaking in Washington on Thursday, the Taoiseach played down the importance of the support of the Independents.

He said: ‘Since the Government was formed we have always had a comfortable majority in the Dáil. ‘We’ve never required the votes of Independents.’