THERE WERE OVER two hours of intense debate and countless claims and counterclaims made by ten party leaders on RTÉ last night.
The debate was at times frustrating owing to the numbers involved but what claims were false and which were on the money? Let’s factcheck some of the standout claims.
Claim: Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin said that Sinn Féin opposed Ireland’s entry “into the European Union and every [European] treaty since”.
The facts: Martin is correct to say that Sinn Féin opposed Ireland’s entry into the European Economic Community (EEC) in 1973.
It also opposed subsequent treaties affecting the Republic of Ireland, including the Maastricht Treaty in 1992, the Amsterdam Treaty in 1997, the Nice Treaty in 2001 and 2002, and the Lisbon Treaty in 2008 and 2009.
However, Sinn Féin has since softened its stance on Europe and campaigned in the UK for Britain to remain in the EU during the Brexit referendum in 2016.
Claim: Micheál Martin also claimed that more than 500,000 additional people are working since he was Taoiseach in the last Government.
He said: “We brought this country back into surplus, coming through the pandemic and [growing] the economy with massive job creation: a half million extra people at work since that time.”
The facts:
Latest figures from the Central Statistics Office (CSO) show that there are only 286,300 more people currently in employment compared to the first quarter of 2020.
In March 2020, before the pandemic hit, there were approximately 2,467,900 employed in Ireland according to the CSO’s Labour Force survey for the first quarter of 2020.
When Martin became Taoiseach in June 2020, there were 1.78 million people employed in Ireland, with the huge drop in employment due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
The number of people in employment rose to around 2.5 million at the end of 2021, when Martin ended his term in the Taoiseach’s office and the economy was recovering from the effects of the pandemic.
Martin is technically right that that employment rose by half a million people during his time in the Taoiseach’s office; however, the number when he entered was low because of the impact of Covid-19 on the economy.
The most recent CSO Labour Force Survey for the second quarter of 2024 recorded 2,754,200 people in employment.
Although that is an increase of almost 300,000 people compared to the last quarter before the impact of Covid was felt on the economy, it falls far short of the half a million extra people at work that Martin claimed during the debate.
The Claim: Simon Harris claimed that discussions about the construction of a new National Children’s Hospital began before he was alive.
He said: “In relation to the National Children’s Hospital: that was discussed before I was even born.”
The facts: Discussions on a National Children’s Hospital have gone back as far as the 1970s, when various options involving different sites were discussed, including by the Department of Health.
However, the current plans for a new National Children’s Hospital were first put forward by the faculty of paediatrics at the Royal College of Physicians in 1993.
Those plans would see the consolidation of Dublin’s three existing children’s hospitals: Our Lady’s Hospital in Crumlin, Temple Street Children’s Hospital and the National Children’s Hospital in Tallaght.
Simon Harris was born in 1986, seven years before the RCPI made that recommendation.
The Claim: Harris also said that after the projected cost of the hospital ballooned, the Government was told that changing or stopping the project would have been more expensive.
The facts: In 2019, amid growing controversy over the escalating cost of the National Children’s Hospital, the Government commissioned consultants PwC to investigate the over-runs.
The report found that there was little scope for reducing the cost of the project, and that finding a new builder would have been more expensive than continuing with BAM, the company that is currently building the site.
It should be noted that the cost of the hospital was expected to be €1.7 billion at the time, but that it has now risen to over €2.2 billion.
The Claim: In a third claim about the National Children’s Hospital, Harris said that the total cost of the facility will be the equivalent of six months of the Pandemic Unemployment Payment (PUP).
The Facts: A report by the Department of Social Protection found that between March 2020 and March 2022, the total cost of the PUP to the Government was €9.2 billion.
That means, on average, that the cost to the Government of six months’ worth of payments was €2.3 billion – in and around the current projected cost of the National Children’s Hospital, which is around €2.2 billion.
The Claim: Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin claimed that inflation in Ireland peaked at 10% during the cost of living crisis.
The facts: The CSO’s Consumer Price Index peaked at 9.1% in August 2022 (which was a 38-year high), before gradually falling again in the months after that.
However, the EU’s Harmonised Index of Consumer Prices also put inflation at 9.6% in July 2022, which one could round up to 10% (even if the figure is not quite 10%).
The Claim: People Before Profit TD Richard Boyd-Barrett claimed during a section on Ireland’s energy prices that ESB posted a profit of a billion Euro in the first half of 2024.
The facts: The Business Post reported in September that operating profits at ESB group were €446 million for the first six months to June 2024.
It said that this was a reduction of €230 million compared to the same period in 2023.
The Claim: The Social Democrats’ Cian O’Callaghan said that if every step of the current Climate Action Plan was implemented, Ireland still wouldn’t meet its targets to reduce emissions by 2030.
O’Callaghan claimed that the current plan would only see a 29% reduction in emissions.
The facts: The Environmental Protection Agency, which publishes figures on Ireland’s emissions annually, reported the figures cited by O’Callaghan earlier this year.
“Ireland is projected to achieve a reduction of up to 29 per cent in total greenhouse gas emissions by 2030, compared to a target of 51 per cent,” it said.
The Claim: Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald said that despite an annual €7.50 hike in carbon tax since 2021, petrol and diesel usage have increased.
The facts: The EPA’s annual report on emissions for 2023 (the last year for which data is available) shows that total use of petrol increased by 6.6% last year, but that diesel consumption fell by 1.2%.
Petrol and diesel usage both increased year-on-year in 2022, though this can partly be attributed to greater societal activity as the economy bounced back after the Covid pandemic.
The EPA also said that Ireland’s emissions reached their lowest point in decades in 2023, in part due to measures such as the carbon tax.
The Claim: Aontú leader Peadar Tóibín said that 500,000 adults are living with their parents.
The facts: Data collected during Census 2022 shows that the figure is actually an understatement: according to the CSO, 522,486 adults were living with their parents on Census night, up by 63,612 from the last Census in 2016.
The Claim: Tóibín also said that there are currently 100,000 empty homes in Ireland.
The facts: CSO figures again show that the figure cited by the Aontú leader is an understatement.
According to the Census 2022, there were 163,433 vacant homes in Ireland, excluding holiday homes.
The Claim: Micheál Martin claimed that the Government has exceeded its targets under Housing For All, which began in 2022.
The facts: The Government exceeded its overall housing targets in 2022 and 2023, but only because of the number of homes built by private developers.
In the first two years of the housing plan, it fell short of its targets for social and affordable housing.
In 2022, the Government planned to deliver 11,820 social homes through building, acquisitions and leasing arrangements; however, official figures show that it only delivered 10,254 of these.
The same year, it aimed to supply 4,100 affordable and cost rental homes – but only delivered 1,757 of these.
The following year, it planned to deliver 13,130 social homes building, acquisitions and leasing arrangements; but again, official figures show the Government only delivered 11,939 of these.
It also set a target of 5,500 affordable and cost rental homes in 2023, but only managed to deliver around 4,000 of these.
Instead, the Government reached its targets in those years because private developers built more homes than was expected.
In 2022, the overall target was for 24,600 homes but 29,726 were built; in 2023, the target was for 29,000 homes but 32,695 were built.
The Claim: Richard Boyd-Barrett claimed that 100 countries around the world have free public transport.
The facts: Although public transport is free in some countries, including Luxembourg and Malta, and places like Tallinn (the capital of Estonia), there does not appear to be evidence to back up this claim.
Instead, it’s likely that Boyd-Barrett misspoke and meant that 100 cities around the world had public transport (a figure estimated by the New York Times in 2020).
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