Minister’s comments on Housing are a disgrace and an insult – Máirín McGrath
Cahir local electoral area candidate Máirín McGrath has described comments made about the housing crisis by the Fine Gael Social Protection Minister, Regina Doherty, as breathtakingly arrogant and out of touch. Máirín was speaking after todays Irish Independent reports that Minister Doherty said she does not really “think that people are going to punish us. People are engaging with us. Yes, they are being critical of some policies but that does not mean that there is an anger out there, or there is a want for change.”
Máirín went on to say that such remarks will strike a nerve with the many thousands of families who are in absolute crisis mode with respect to housing and homelessness:
“Statements like this remind us that Fine Gael and this government are so far inside the elite political bubble that they can no longer see the reality on the ground.
To say that people are not angry over the current housing emergency is simply incomprehensible. If the Minister had spent even one day on the local election canvas she would be very quickly reminded of how profoundly insulting those kinds of remarks are.
Is this what we will get if Fine Gael are given the opportunity to continue its disastrously ineffective housing policy? I think that is a very real question people need to ask themselves before the local elections vote tomorrow,” Máirín concluded.