THE DÁIL HEARD some particularly nasty exchanges today, ostensibly about housing, as both Sinn Fein’s Mary Lou McDonald and Taoiseach Micheál Martin referenced events of the past. 

McDonald began Leaders’ Questions by asking Martin about a recent report in The Sun which said that O’Devaney Gardens developer Bartra considered selling 500 homes to a cuckoo fund. 

McDonald said that Bartra was “effectively trying to blackmail the taxpayer” and that the government should have supported Dublin City Council developing the land. 

As part of a deal struck between Bartra and Dublin City Council, just over half of the O’Devaney Gardens redevelopment scheme is to be made up of social and affordable homes.

“You were warned that sidelining the local authority and gifting public lands to private developers was a really bad idea. Do you now now accept those facts Taoiseach,” she said.

In response, Martin said that housing was “the single most urgent and important social issue facing our country” but that “Sinn Féin always has a reason to say this project or that project cannot go ahead.”

“O’Devaney Gardens would have been built a long time ago if it wasn’t for people playing politics with it. It’s either the Sinn Féin way or the highway. We’ll either build houses our way or we’ll never build houses,” he said. 

Housing development 

The exchange continued with McDonald saying it was “a salutary tale of Fianna Fáil in government”.  

She then alleged that Martin’s party was “the party of the Galway tent and brown envelopes and a cozy relationship with developers”.

McDonald then went further by speaking about “the corrupted nature of your relationship with the people that I refer to”. 

Martin took particular exception to this comment saying: “You used the word corruption there, you are the last party to talk to anybody about corruption because your party corrupted public life in this republic for well on 40 years.!

McDonald responded: “Ansbacher, Galway.”

An Taoiseach continued: “You corrupted the moral code of our country and our society by the murder and mayhem that you perpetrated and that you still endorse deputy, you still endorse it.”

He added: ”You also support the undermining of women who were raped by IRA volunteers and your party covered it up”. 

McDonald interjected to say that this was “pathetic”, with Sinn Fén’s Pearse Doherty asking “are we talking about housing?”.

To end the exchange, Ceann Comhairle asked “could we just restore some order?”.