Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald has been accused of flying to the US to “take the dollars” from “big businesses, companies and builders” by Tánaiste Simon Harris.
The Fine Gael leader said Sinn Féin was “the party of taking big money from big American building companies” and that its deputy leader Pearse Doherty’s “Jack in the box routine doesn’t build homes”.
Mr Harris launched the scathing attack on the party during Leaders’ Questions in the Dáil on Thursday, after Mr Doherty raised a report from the Residential Tenancies Board (RTB), which showed the number of tenancies ended by landlords has increased by 35 per cent since the same time last year.
Mr Doherty said Fine Gael’s approach to housing and renting was to let the market “run wild, protecting profits and abandoning ordinary people”.
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The Donegal TD said rents had almost doubled since Mr Harris took up his position at Cabinet and that Fine Gael was favouring landlords and developers in its political choices over renters.
Mr Harris had promised he would increase the renters tax credit if elected and had broken that promise, “like so many others”, he said.
“Simon says on one hand, Simon does on the other hand. The election is over and Simon doesn’t care,” Mr Doherty said.
In response, Mr Harris said ESRI analysis had shown that 62 per cent of properties nationally saw no change in rent year on year.
He said Sinn Féin’s policy on rent pressure zones (RPZs) was “Jekyll and Hyde” and that he had heard differing views on the issue from Mary Lou McDonald and the party’s housing spokesman Eoin Ó Broin.
The Tánaiste also said that Mr Doherty was “celebrating” his 15th anniversary as Opposition spokesperson for finance.
“Five finance ministers later, you are still sitting in the same seat because the people of Ireland don’t trust you when it comes to the economy,” he told the Sinn Féin TD.
“They know that the angry Jack in the box routine doesn’t build homes Pearse.” Mr Harris then went on to repeatedly call the deputy leader “angry Pearse”.
He said there was only one party in the Oireachtas receiving “very significant financial funding” from builders and construction companies.
Mr Harris said the published accounts from the US fundraising arm, Friends of Sinn Féin, in 2024 showed that the bulk of their donations, which came to a total of €366,000, were from construction companies and builders, including $20,000 from one such company.
“You tell the young people of Ireland you’re on the side of the working people, and Mary Lou flies out to America to take the dollars from the big businesses, big companies, big builders,” he said.
[ Sinn Féin’s merchandising arm donates €205,000 to party in BelfastOpens in new window ]
“You are the party of taking big money from big American building companies. You are a hypocrite.”
