ONE OF THE most common criticisms of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael is that they are too similar to each other, but with an election around the corner the lines will be drawn and the differences made clear – or so you would think.

Housing remains one of the most pressing issues of our time and will be a key deciding factor for people when the country goes to the ballot box.

The largest opposition party, Sinn Féin, has set out its stall in the last two months, pitching voters a vastly different approach to that of the current Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and Green coalition.

But what sets Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael apart from each other on the issue? Are there any dividing lines? According to Taoiseach Simon Harris, it doesn’t matter at the moment.

“I don’t ever compare and contrast any party. What I actually do is focus on what we want to do,” Harris said when asked what differentiates Fine Gael from Fianna Fáil on housing.

In an interview with The Journal, the Taoiseach discussed his ambitions for housing, setting out how his priority is to increase supply and enable more people to buy their own homes.

For the duration of this government Fianna Fáil has held the housing brief, with Micheál Martin pushing hard for his party to get the Department during the coalition talks of 2020. 

Next time round, would Harris do the same for Fine Gael?

Before getting into that, he made clear that he doesn’t accept the suggestion that Fianna Fáil has been in the driving set for housing in this government.

“So firstly, I chair the cabinet committee on housing as Taoiseach. The cabinet committee on housing would have been chaired by Leo Varadkar previously, and by Micheál Martin previously,” he said.

Darragh O’Brien is doing an excellent job but housing is always an all-of-government issue.

“If you think about it, many of the supports come from departments of finance that have been led by both Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael ministers. And a lot of good work that has been done, also around energy and retrofitting, has been led, for example, by Eamon Ryan so this is an all-of-government effort, and it has to be.”

So does Harris want Fine Gael to have the housing brief in any future government? 

“I don’t think the name of the minister matters. What matters most is the policies that we agree and I want us to be, as I know all three parties do, much more ambitious for the second half of the decade,” Harris responded. 

“I actually think we have a lot of the key ingredients right now to significantly ramp up supply, but it is going to require further investment.

“And what I’m saying very honestly to people, and particularly young people, who suffered the most from the mismanagement of this country in the past, is I now want to use the resources, including from the sale of bank shares, to invest a hell of a lot more in the likes of the LDA, water, electricity, so we can not get to this boom and bust where we build loads one year and no houses the next year, but actually have a real pipeline of homes, and that’s how you address all of the issues.”

Does all of this mean that if you vote for Fine Gael you will get the same housing policies as Fianna Fáil and vice versa? 

No. But obviously we’re in government now, and I’m leading a coalition government where housing is the most important and pressing issue in our country, and it’s important the government and all three parties in government are united on taking action.

“The government is still in office and still functioning and still looking to deliver. Of course, when you get to an election, in all of our manifestos we’ll set out different views and initiatives that we’d like to pursue,” Harris said. 

What is “absolutely priority” for Fine Gael is keeping the supports for first time buyers in place – the Help to Buy scheme and the First Home scheme, two schemes Sinn Féin has pledged to abolish in lieu of a new affordable housing scheme.

“But I also want to be honest with people, it’s taking too long to deliver some projects, and that’s why I do want to set up a Department of Infrastructure,” Harris added.

This is an idea that Micheál Martin has refused to put his support behind, arguing that existing departments already have the required expertise.

Harris acknowledged that it isn’t a proposal with full coalition support but maintains that it would be a game changer: “Other parties have different views on that. I think we need to cut through the bureaucracy, the red tape, the ‘that’s the job for this department, that’s the job for the other department’. When it comes to delivering public housing, water, energy, I think we need to create an expertise in the public service that helps deliver projects at scale and more quickly.”

Micheál Martin on the other hand said: “My concern with that proposal is that it would actually lead to a greater delay and even more costly expenditure over time.”

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This article is part of Policy Matters, a series from The Journal that takes a deep dive into the ideas and solutions proposed by Ireland’s politicians on some of the biggest issues of the day.

As part of the series, The Journal sits down with different spokespeople from across Ireland’s political parties to take a deeper look at what they believe needs to be done across areas like housing, health, the environment and childcare.

Last time, we spoke to former Green party leader and Minister for Climate and Transport Eamon Ryan about his view of Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil in government.

You can read past articles in this series here.