MURPHY ‘WEAKEST LINK’

CONCERN is growing in Fianna Fáil that embattled Housing Minister Eoghan Murphy is the weak link that will collapse the Confidence-and-Supply Agreement.

It comes as Government allies of Mr Murphy told the Irish Mail on Sunday that they believe the struggling minister would have been moved out of the Department of Housing if that portfolio had not already had three occupants in two years.

Amid growing speculation that Sinn Féin will finally table its motion of no-confidence in Mr Murphy, Fianna Fáil frontbencher Niall Collins warned that any such motion ‘will place us all in a very difficult space’.

Mr Collins said: ‘I like Eoghan, but regrettably he has failed to grasp a single nettle.’

Fine Gael ministers rushed to the defence of a flailing Mr Murphy this weekend as they sought to place the blame for his whose brother is the Love/Hate actor Killian Scott, had to counter critical claims, put to him by Miriam O’Callaghan on RTÉ Radio last week, that he is a ‘posh’ person from Dublin 4 and is not suited to dealing with the housing crisis affecting all sections of society.

He said if people are focusing on the ‘fact I am a posh boy from D4 they are missing the mark completely’. One rural Fine Gael TD said the acting classes plan will give off a bad message.

However, one party TD said: ‘I think that ordinary people would nearly prefer if we went on the batter and skulled pints rather than predicament on his predecessor Simon Coveney’s overambitious commitments at the department.

Ministers and TDs, in a series of briefings designed to protect a close ally of Leo Varadkar, also sought to spread the blame by saying the Government as a whole had ‘lost control of the narrative’ on housing.

Mr Murphy came under renewed attack during the week over his performance in an interview on RTÉ’s Today With Miriam O’Callaghan.

He admitted during the interview that homeless numbers were likely to rise again and could reach 10,000.

He added: ‘What I have said before is that while the numbers are obviously too high, hitting 10,000 doesn’t tell us anything that hitting 9,000 didn’t tell us, which is we have a crisis.

‘Because, unfortunately… this housing crisis is incredibly deep. It was never going to be turned around in two years.’ engage in this kind of frippery. It looks awful, and it’s the kind of thing that posh boys do at posh schools while the rest of us are playing Gaelic football and smoking around the back of the bike sheds.’

The backgrounds of senior Fine Gael ministers and their relative elitism are now sensitive matters for Fine Gael apparatchiks.

Mr Varadkar went to school at King’s Hospital, a boarding school run by the Church of Ireland, Tánaiste Simon Coveney went to Clongowes Wood College, a fee-paying boarding school and Mr Murphy went to St Michael’s College, also a fee-paying secondary school in south Dublin.

The MoS also understands that Fine Gael will appoint a number of general election candidates this week. Candidates who are not members of the parliamentary party will be invited to the think-in.

‘People would prefer if we went on the batter’