Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions
Dail Éireann — 2026-05-13
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Paul Murphy (PBP), Dublin South-West

On Bertie Ahern, I will just say this. What people say when they do not think they are being recorded is actually more valuable than what they say when they know they are being recorded. It suggests a dirty game used on doorsteps by Fianna Fáil to divide and rule ordinary people, and to have them not blaming the people the Taoiseach represents - the developers, the landlords, the people who get rich from the housing crisis. Instead, it is better to blame the people from Congo or wherever else.
Regarding the council flats and the rents issue, the Taoiseach cannot have it both ways. He is the Taoiseach; the leader of a party which has councillors. He has a responsibility and a connection with the votes, for example, to increase council rents. Does he stand over those increases or not? They are not doing that out of nowhere. It is a nationally driven project. We can look at the Government's programme for Government increasing council rents. We can look at this new programme, which has not been published yet, which points to massive increases in council rents. We can look towards the plan to merge cost-rental and social housing.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-05-13/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-09-14T01:01:03+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-05-13