Hapless minister a liability who puts FG’s return to power at risk
HAPPILY, we are not having a Christmas election. But the Taoiseach knows he has only deferred rather than resolved a big political problem which can be summed up in two words: Eoghan Murphy.
The Dublin Bay South TD with the urbane accent these days attracts trouble like a magnet draws iron filings. The words we heard in last night’s confidence debate on the Housing Minister were familiar, but note the increasingly shrill tone of which we shall definitely hear more.
Earlier, Leo Varadkar repeated his stout defence of the man who was his party leadership campaign director in May 2017.
The Taoiseach argued that big progress is being made on increasing housing supply with the largest rise in social housing in any year of this century – “regardless of boom and bust”.
We must also acknowledge that the banking and economic collapse reduced housebuilding to virtually nothing a decade ago. Since Fine Gael took over government leadership in 2011, there have been five people in charge of trying to remedy the growing homelessness and housing crisis which followed economic recovery.
Three came from Labour – Willie Penrose, Jan O’Sullivan and Alan Kelly – during the ill-starred 2011-2016 Fine Gael-Labour coalition. When Enda Kenny returned as a minority taoiseach in 2016, the daunting challenge fell to Simon Coveney, and when Mr Varadkar succeeded as Taoiseach in 2017, it was enter Eoghan Murphy.
So, is Mr Murphy any more culpable than his four predecessors? And does he get even grudging credit for some progress – even though it comes up short amid huge housing demand?
Well, the answer to both those questions is a brutal no. That is because the housing crisis has by now affected every echelon of society.
People who might be tempted to feel smug at living mortgage-free, or close to that state of grace, in a nice neighbourhood are rapidly learning the greater reality. In many cases their children are coming of age, and finding that – even if they are doing well at work – homeownership is a pipe dream.
Other people find they cannot get staff to expand their businesses. People charged with trying to attract inward investment and job creation to Ireland are warning that a lack of affordable accommodation is a big problem, which is also doing the country reputational damage.
The real problem is that Eoghan Murphy has become a lightning rod for all of this – and there is no end in sight. People trapped in a rent spiral are getting especially angry.
A Cabinet reshuffle after last May’s local and European Parliament elections, moving one of the Taoiseach’s key lieutenants to a place of relative safety, would have been wise. It would look a bit more obvious to do that now given this second no-confidence motion in two years.
But it might still be worth the risk.