Sinn Féin open to coalition with Fianna Fáil but says Martin’s criticisms are ‘desperate’

Sinn Féin has branded Tánaiste Micheál Martin as “desperate” following his criticism of the party at the Fianna Fáil think-in on Monday.

Mr Martin told reporters on Monday that Sinn Féin “triumphalism” around atrocities committed by the Provisional IRA was “infecting” younger voters – comments which Sinn Féin’s housing spokesman Eoin Ó Broin today dismissed as “desperate”.

He said the remarks were “ill-judged, patronising and insulting”.

“I don’t think he has anything positive to offer young people on housing and healthcare, on childcare. And therefore increasingly, so much of his commentary is negative,” he said, arguing Sinn Féin had “positive alternatives”.

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Mr Martin said that Sinn Féin had been very slow to bring closure to victims of Provisional IRA violence. “They still try to triumphalise it, they still try to justify it. The problem with that is that you’re infecting a new generation of young people,” the Tánaiste said.

Asked about this, Mr Ó Broin insisted young people are talking to him about high rents, high house prices and the possibility of emigration because of the housing crisis.

“People aren’t stupid, they know what is working and what is not working in our country.”

Asked about the possibility of going into Government with Fianna Fáil, Mr Ó Broin indicated Sinn Féin would ultimately be open to such a Coalition in the right circumstances but poured cold water on the prospect of doing so with Fianna Fáil or the incumbent holding the housing portfolio.

He said Sinn Féin’s first priority was to try to form a Government without Fine Gael or Fianna Fáil and leading a Government while holding key ministries such as housing.

“If it’s not possible to form a Government without Fianna Fáil or Fine Gael we’ll talk to any party that’s interested, but it has to be on the basis of a radically different approach to all policy issues, including housing, and I don’t see any set of circumstances where I would be in a Government with Darragh O’Brien as Minister for Housing.”

The Dublin Mid West TD called on Mr O’Brien to publish figures showing the quarterly progress on delivering against social and affordable housing targets, saying there was “no credible answer” as to why figures for the first two quarters of the year had not been published, which he said he understood had been completed but not published by Mr O’Brien.

He said capital spending on social housing was some €200 million behind target, saying the figures available showed the Coalition is “failing” with record homeless numbers recorded against the backdrop of rising rents and house prices, charging that the Government is “not ambitious enough” and that it was “out of time and needs to go”.