Malahide minister Darragh O’Brien found himself under fire from two different angles.
Controversy followed O’Brien into his new position as Minister for Climate, Environment and Energy with O’Brien taking office the evening before Storm Éowyn hit the country.
One of O’Brien’s final tasks as Minister for Housing and Local Government was to prepare for the impact of Storm Éowyn, with members of the opposition now stating that the government was underprepared for the impact of the storm.
Two weeks after the storm hit, thousands of homes are still without power in the West of Ireland, and the Dáil itself faced criticism for not sitting sooner to deal with the storm’s aftermath.
The storm, which hit on January 24, led to calls from opposition leaders Mary Lou McDonald and Cian O’Callaghan to recall the Dáil.
McDonald said “TDs must be given the opportunity to raise these issues and concerns directly with government and to engage on the responses and supports needed,” while O’Callaghan said, “it beggars belief that, in the midst of this crisis, there are no plans for the Dáil to sit.”
O’Brien hit out at attempts from the two Northside TDs to “politicise” the storm, telling reporters “no speech in the Dáil is going to restore power or water or assist a community.”
When the Dáil did eventually meet again on February 5 – the new government ministers needed a two-week break to familiarise themselves with their new duties was the official government line – O’Brien faced criticism for his department’s handling of the storm and the revelation that his tenure as Minister for Housing significantly underdelivered in purely statistical terms.
O’Callaghan was back on O’Brien’s case as soon as the Dáil sat again; he commented “of course, we now know why no such plan was brought before the Dáil last week: the government simply did not have one. There was no proper contingency planning.”
Green leader Roderic O’Gorman said, “as extreme weather events become more frequent and destructive due to climate change, we need to strengthen our emergency services and resource those who repair critical infrastructure to respond rapidly and effectively.”
“The delays in restoring power, water and broadband, especially in the west, highlight the need for greater preparedness, planning and investment.”
Speaking in the Dáil, O’Brien said that “learnings will emerge” from the aftermath of Storm Éowyn and that the government will launch a review into the storm response.
He said that as a result of Storm Éowyn, a grid resilience plan will be put into place for winter 2025 in a bid to prevent damage to Ireland’s electricity grid; at the height of the storm, over 750,000 Irish households were left without power, including thousands across Dublin.
Minister for Social Protection Dara Calleary stated “while Storm Éowyn was unprecedented, it is now the precedent and we have to prepare accordingly based on this precedent.”
With one storm out of the way, O’Brien then faced another; the accusations that the government misled the public about the number of houses being built during his tenure as Minister for Housing.
The Central Statistics Office published statistics in January that the government failed to meet its own targets of building 40,000 homes in Ireland in 2024; the statistics revealed that a grand total of 30,330 homes were built in Ireland last year, a drop of 6.7% compared to 2023.
The figure of 30,330 is a stark contrast to the figure championed by O’Brien in the Dáil last October; the Fianna Fáil TD asserted “the reality is that the quarter 3 completion figures are the highest on record,” and said that the Housing For All Target this year is 33,540.
He stated, “I have consistently said we will exceed that target and I still confidently predict – and Sinn Féin will be disappointed – that it will be the high 30,000s to low 40,000s this year.”
“The fact of the matter is this Government delivered more new social homes last year than has been done in 50 years and will do more this year; we will achieve our social housing new-build targets this year and will exceed our affordable housing targets this year.”
This raises an uncomfortable question for O’Brien; was he aware that his department was going to miss key housing targets, or was he simply saving face?
Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald gladly took the chance to focus the conversation on the government’s underdelivering on housing.
“The figure of 40,000 new homes was pure fiction, a trick designed to mislead the public because the government could not face an election based on the actual facts of its performance on housing.”
“His election lies have been exposed and he has been caught out,” she said.
Taoiseach Micheál Martin defended Fianna Fáil’s delivery on housing, saying the figures were mere “estimates.”
“The bottom line as far as I am concerned is that I am very disappointed with the outturn for 2024; we got the figure wrong in terms of what we thought might happen. The target was 33,000. We thought it would be much higher than that. I regret that.”
Martin then said, “we need a fundamental shift, not just within the government but in the Oireachtas more generally, in our approach and our attitude to private sector investment in housing,” commenting that Sinn Féin, the Social Democrats and Labour are “wedded” to certain fundamentals on the economics of housing.
Martin criticised what he called “absolute fundamentalism in respect of how things should happen has held back housing growth in this country,” and criticised both the Social Democrats (which demanded 50,000 homes a year to be built as one of their coalition demands) and Labour (who demanded the creation of a State housing agency during coalition talks)
When Fine Gael’s Eoghan Murphy was in charge of housing between 2016 and 2020, Murphy opted for a supply-side and free-market approach to housing (most notably, pushing for co-living arrangements), it directly led to housing becoming the defining issue of the 2020 general election and Fine Gael losing seats and Sinn Féin emerging as a major political force.
With the new government not even a month old, debates around ideology are likely to rage over the course of the next government with Dublin TDs right at the heart of it.