FF’s O’Brien summoned to FG meeting to explain plans for housing

BELEAGUERED Housing Minister Darragh O’Brien has been summoned to a private Fine Gael parliamentary party meeting to update the minister’s increasingly uneasy Coalition partners on the progress of his housing policies.

Despite unease among the Fine Gael party hierarchy, the suggestion to invite Mr O’Brien to attend secured broad support from TDs and senators.

The invitation was made via a motion from former minister Charlie Flanagan, with sources saying: ‘Charlie was reflecting broad and growing unease within the party on the issue.’

Mr Flanagan said: ‘Affordability is the key issue. The

‘He will be getting a bit of a roasting’

Troika is gone seven years and house prices are still beyond the reach of most.’

One party source said: ‘The top table tried to head it off at the pass. There was no desire for a visitation from Darragh to the party among the masters of the universe. In fact, they appeared to be visibly unnerved by the prospect.’

Another source said: ‘An element of “come into my parlour said the spider to the fly” surrounds this invitation. Richard [Bruton] has been sent off with the message to Fianna Fáil to please send Darragh over.’

The invitation arrives at a critical pinch point in the minister’s career.

Mr O’Brien has struggled to regain the political initiative after his initial plans to reopen the construction sector on March 5 were quashed by NPHET.

Fine Gael sources warned: ‘The minister has not impressed. There is a sense that the progress being made under Eoghan Murphy has been squandered.’ He will, they said, ‘be getting a bit of a roasting. People want to know why the Land Development Agency is not delivering.’

Another source remarked: ‘We find ourselves constantly defending a fellow who certainly did not go out of his way to defend us during confidence and supply.’

A minister said: ‘There is growing concern over whether he is in control of the ministry. Construction workers are in open revolt.

‘The Gardaí are not policing construction. He does not appear to be in control.’

There is a sense, they added, ‘that coronavirus is actually disguising his weaknesses. Housing has fallen down the agenda during the crisis, but it needs to climb back up – hence the invitation to Darragh to come in for a chat.’

In an indication of concern within Fianna Fáil, his own are circling the wagons.

Fianna Fáil Minister Niall Collins said: ‘The reopening of construction and catching up for lost time is a big challenge for the Housing Minister. It is one he is capable of and is more than up for.’

Others are more unsure, with one Coalition source warning that Minister O’Brien ‘is developing an unfortunate propensity for walking into doors’.

Unease in that regard is gathering over the minister’s apparent enthusiasm for the resurrection of the moribund Thornton Hall site within his Dublin Fingal constituency.

Responding to questions by the Social Democrat co-leader Catherine Murphy, Mr O’Brien revealed the Land Development Authority ‘have informed my department that they are currently engaging with the Irish Prison Service in relation to the site at Thornton Hall’.

Since 2005 over €51m has been spent on the 165-acre site for what was supposed to be Ireland’s first super-prison without a single prison cell having been built.

DID YOU REMEMBER? Summer Time began at 1am, when clocks should have been put forward by an hour.