FG battle ready for election
Fine gael meet today to put final pieces in place for vote
FINE Gael members are meeting today to appoint directors of election for every constituency in the country.
The Taoiseach was rebuffed by Fianna Fail leader Micheal Martin earlier this week when he asked for a two-year extension of the Supply and Confidence Arrangement.
Leo Varadkar then gathered his party for their traditional think-in in Salthill, Co Galway, where members were told all of the infrastructure for an immediate election is in place.
The “final piece in the jigsaw”, according to one TD, is the special meeting today at which the party war generals will be appointed.
It comes after Mr Varadkar told the Irish Mirror this week all of their election selection conventions will be completed in three weeks.
The last one is believed to be scheduled for September 26. Elsewhere at the party get-together, Eoghan Murphy announced he will take housing policy away from local authorities if they don’t up their game.
But with the latest figures showing there are now nearly 10,000 people homeless, this met with criticism from opposition politicians.
Solidarity’s Mick Barry said: “The Housing Minister’s decision to send threatening letters to local authorities is a shabby and obvious attempt to deflect criticism over his failure to get to grips with the crisis.
“The fact of the matter is that the minister and central Government have control over the local councils.
“They clearly don’t want to fight an election on housing because it will show the failure of their strategy over a period of seven
years in government. In four local authority areas Solidarity has produced costed plans to use Stateowned land for housing developments which could deliver more than 3,000 social and affordable homes. “However, the minister and his department have refused to give the green light for these developments. “The Taoiseach and the minister have said it will take a number of years for housing to be completed. “In the meantime they have constantly voted against and refused to implement measures such as a ban on economic evictions. “Solidarity will be backing the Sinn Fein Dail motion of no confidence in Minister Murphy. “However, we do not believe that replacing him with another Fine Gael minister will make any difference.”