Murphy home at last... but fury grows as fund plan ‘abandons’ rural families
AS the housing and rent crisis grows worse, embattled Housing Minister Eoghan Murphy has finally returned from his holiday abroad – only to face accusations that his latest plan treats rural people as ‘second-class citizens’.
Last week, Mr Murphy told the Irish Mail on Sunday he would not return early to deal with the crisis, after pictures emerged of homeless children forced to sleep on benches in a Garda station. And this week the housing crisis sparked activists to occupy two houses in Dublin city, while the latest Daft.ie report shows rents at an all-time high.
Now any hope that his future plans may appease his critics will be dashed by the furious reaction to the new affordable housing scheme. Under it, ordinary households – where one person is earning 50,000 or a couple earn €75,000 – can apply to their council to buy an affordable home.
But rural representatives were furious when the Housing Department told Independent Senator Victor Boyhan that because there is ‘an affordability issue’ in Dublin, Galway and Cork cities, they would be limiting funding ‘under the Serviced Sites Fund to these areas’.
Michael Fitzmaurice TD reacted sharply noting: ‘This is another example of how rural Irish people are treated as second-class citizens.’
The Government ‘needs to wake up and realise there is a housing crisis in rural Ireland and quite a few people earn less than €50,000 a year’. He said: ‘It appears to be the case that Rebuilding Ireland does not travel beyond the Pale.’
Senator Boyhan demanded: ‘It should be a national scheme, affordable housing is a national issue.’ He said that people are ‘feeling abandoned and desolate in more places than Dublin. We need to start building affordable housing for those who want to pay for their homes rather than go on the social housing list’.
In an indication of growing alarm in Fine Gael over the issue, one party rural TD said: ‘It’s astonishing, three Fine Gael TDs in the Customs House, and they make a mess of it again. The backbenchers are starting to get very uneasy.’