ENVIRONMENT MINISTER ALAN Kelly has hit out at “anonymous” government colleagues following criticism of his efforts to solve the housing and rental crisis.
Kelly has been the subject of two days of negative stories about him in the Irish Independent over ongoing efforts to introduce new measures on rent.
Kelly wants to introduce ‘rent certainty’ which would link residential rental prices to the consumer price index for a period of time, but Fine Gael is opposing this.
The Irish Independent yesterday quoted a senior government source describing Kelly as “the single biggest cause of rent hikes” in the last six months.
Today the paper claims Kelly turned down a Budget deal to provide rent certainty to low-income families on rent supplement. Kelly today denied this was the case and said discussions are ongoing.
Speaking in Athy today, Kelly was also having none of the references to him as ‘Calamity Kelly’ by anonymous colleagues, saying:
“I take no notice of anonymous commentary. If people are cowardly and they don’t want to put their names to stuff that’s their own business. I don’t get worried about anonymous press officer briefings basically taking on myself, or making comments about myself.
He said he had come through an awful lot, including “many death threats” so was not bothered by such briefings.
Kelly said there was no rent deal on the table before the Budget, insisting: ”If there was a package on the table, I’d say it out straight.”
Referring to himself in the third person, the Labour deputy leader said he needed cooperation from a range of bodies in order to solve the housing crisis:
Alan Kelly on his own cannot solve this issue.
He was speaking at the announcement of an €8 million investment in Athy, Co Kildare to convert the old Dominican church into a library and construct social housing on the old church grounds.
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