TAOISEACH MICHEÁL MARTIN has suggested that his own party’s councillors should not have voted against a number of local authority motions after accusing Sinn Féin of “objecting” to new homes by doing the same.

It comes after Fianna Fáil councillors last week asked their party leader whether he accepted there was a difference between objecting to housing “outright” and voting against it due to questions over whether it was suitable.

The issue has become a source of disagreement since the Taoiseach accused Sinn Féin of “objecting to various projects on an ongoing basis”, including thousands of new homes at local authority level, during a Dáil debate earlier this month.

“Your party have, from Tallaght to Donabate – right across – you have objected to about 6,000 houses,” he told Sinn Féin housing spokesperson Eoin Ó Broin.

“Sinn Féin have objected to them. And voted against them happening. Now that, to me, is hypocrisy when put in contrast with the huge crisis that we have in terms of housing.”

However, a document provided to The Journal by Fianna Fáil last week to support the Taoiseach’s claim listed a number of votes in which the party’s councillors voted the same way as Sinn Féin.

They included four votes on the rezoning of land at Dublin City Council in March 2020, a vote on the disposal of land at Oscar Traynor Road in Dublin to a private developer, a vote at South Dublin County Council on the construction of 27 homes in Knocklyon, and a vote at Mayo County Council in favour of 21 homes in Kiltimagh on certain conditions.

Full details of each of these votes and more than a dozen others were detailed in a FactCheck published by The Journal last weekend, which found the Taoiseach’s claim was misleading.

Asked yesterday whether he agreed that his own councillors had also ‘objected’ to housing, Martin said he regularly criticised those who voted to prevent new homes from being built. 

“I’ve been very consistent about this all along; you can go back over my comments, irrespective of party, I’ve called into question serial objections to housing projects and zoning for housing,” he said.

“I met Government councillors last week, and I made the same point to them: we can’t say this is a crisis and then just habitually vote against projects because they may not suit us, locally, electorally or whatever.

“So I’ve made that very clear and I’ve said this publicly in the, Dáil irrespective of what party.”

The meeting referred to by the Taoiseach took place in Dublin last week and was also attended by Housing Minister Darragh O’Brien.

It’s understood that it involved an open discussion about the housing crisis and that councillors were allowed to put concerns to Martin and O’Brien.

One person who attended the meeting told The Journal that although councillors acknowledged that there is a housing emergency, some asked whether the Taoiseach understood the difference between “objecting outright to housing and making observations”.

The Taoiseach is said to have accepted there was a difference, but it’s understood he added that objecting was “still the wrong thing to do in a crisis”.

Speaking from Berlin, Martin said Irish society had to “make up its mind” about what was needed most to help end the housing crisis.

“I think the hierarchy is that we need more supply urgently,” he told reporters.

“We need more houses built, and we need to develop capacity [...] The big obstacle at the moment will be delivery, right along the line in terms of providing sites and local authorities getting on with it.

“We cannot have the lengthy terminal debates around places like O’Devaney Gardens and Oscar Traynor Road. It’s just not acceptable.”

However, Sinn Féin housing spokesperson Eoin Ó Broin described the Taoiseach’s claim that the party had objected to new homes as “a dishonest attempt to distract from the Government’s failed housing policy”.

“The Taoiseach, embarrassed by his own record, is deliberately misrepresenting a series of votes on controversial land transfers and land zonings, in a desperate attempt to blame the opposition for his party’s failures,” he told The Journal.

Ó Broin said that Sinn Féin has long campaigned for public homes to be built on public sites like O’Devaney Gardens and the Oscar Traynor Road, and added that Fianna Fáil had not funded local authorities enough to deliver affordable homes.

With reporting by Christina Finn.