I WANT TO RETURN AS HOUSING MINISTER

Poster boy Eoghan Murphy aims to continue ‘his legacy’ as Fine Gael pledges to build 11,000 homes... if voters agree

EOGHAN Murphy has insisted he wants to stay on as Housing Minister should Fine Gael win the election.

Mr Murphy denied that his much-criticised Rebuilding Ireland project had failed and said he’d ‘like the opportunity to continue’ his legacy.

He was speaking alongside Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe yesterday as they revealed Fine Gael’s plans to build 60,000 social homes in the next five years.

It comes after Mr Murphy said there would be a ‘full investigation’ into this week’s incident that saw a homeless man suffer life-changing injuries as a digger driver attempted to remove his tent.

‘I think given where we are in the housing cycle, it’s important that we continue with the plans that we have and we improve on what we can, and where we know we need to,’ said the Housing Minister, who narrowly avoided losing a vote of no-confidence last month.

‘I would like the opportunity to continue what I’ve been doing so far,’ he added.

Asked if he would like to stay on as Housing Minister should his party return to Government, Mr Murphy promptly declared: ‘Yes.’

He claimed his department had built 10,000 social homes in the past year and promised to build 11,000 this year.

‘I think I have made some important reforms in the last couple of years,’ he added.

‘Speeding up the planning process, we’re going to see many more apartments built because of the changes we made to the Department of Planning. I increased the amount of money we’re spending on social housing by 30%, regulating Airbnb, where we need to do more, in particular hiring resources and getting on in enforcement, and there are more things I want to do.’ Echoing Taoiseach Leo Varadkar’s message as the election campaign kicks off, Mr Murphy conceded that ‘we know we have more to do’.

He also addressed the news that an African immigrant had sustained ‘life-threatening injuries’ on Tuesday after a digger picked up his tent while he was inside.

The incident occurred right beside a campaign poster for Mr Murphy – which was swiftly taken down by his team.

The Housing Minister said the accident was a ‘terrible mistake’ as he denied the incident was part of a clean-up operation.

He also claimed that the incident was being investigated ‘very quickly’ – though did not specify how long that would take.

‘When I first heard – and I think most people had this reaction – I was shocked,’ Mr Murphy said, adding he was ‘generally upset’ for the victim.

‘But this wasn’t a clean-up operation, a terrible thing happened and it is being investigated,’ he later added.

He said the tents were being removed for ‘health and safety reasons’. Elsewhere, the Finance

Minister called on Fianna Fáil to ‘lay out’ its plans to tackle the nation’s homelessness crisis.

Mr Donohoe also hit out at Fianna Fáil, accusing the party of having no substance to its policies – something he said was a ‘reflection’ of their attitude to the election.

‘Fianna Fáil believe this election is going to fall into their lap,’ Mr Donohoe said.

‘They believe that they are on their way to Government. We don’t take anything for granted.

‘We don’t take any votes for granted, we don’t take the support of any voter or any citizen in this country for granted.’

Mr Donohoe added that yesterday was ‘the first of many’ events in which his party would lay out plans to solve the housing crisis.

The Department of Housing has had a catastrophic week which saw it embroiled in several scandals, including the digger incident.

It was revealed on Wednesday that a homeless woman in her 20s had died in a hostel in Dublin.

And images of an elderly woman eating her dinner off a windowsill on a Dublin street went viral, as did another image of a woman in her 60s with dementia sitting in the rain on a city street.

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‘We know we have more to do’