Coalition’s memory fades as scandals mount

Taoiseach Simon Harris and other members of the Dublin government have repeatedly condemned their own actions in a week of hypocritical political posturing by his Fine Gael party.

Controversies over wasteful public spending and the housing and immigration crises have seen Ministers rewrite history by distancing themselves from their past decisions.

Sinn Féin spokesperson on Social Protection Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire TD described the Taoiseach as a “responsibility free zone” is acting as a commentator on crises that he and his government have created.

He spoke out after Harris blamed the housing crisis on lax migration policies which he and his Fine Gael colleagues had designed and implemented.

“Simon Harris has been in government for 13 years, and has sat at the Cabinet table for 8 years. He is responsible for the failures of successive governments, yet he’s assumed the role of a commentator and he’s being let get away with it.

“Homelessness has been rising relentlessly since 2011. The common denominator? Fine Gael in Government, propped up by Fianna Fáil since 2016.

“The truth is that the government parties have created a housing crisis that has continued to escalate. Fine Gael have created the housing crisis, and it gets worse every day that they are in government.

“Fine Gael have also made a mess of the international protection system. Decisions are far, far too slow, communication and consultation is a mess, enforcement of decisions is inadequate, and the approach to accommodation relies heavily on the private sector, and has resulted in the enrichment of a small number of private operators and the antagonising of entire communities.

“The Taoiseach now seeks to use one of his failures to excuse another.”

Harris also lashed out at his government’s handling of the National Children’s Hospital saga and its multi-billion euro cost overrun.

Speaking in New York, Simon Harris bizarrely urged his own government to ‘stand up for the taxpayer’.

“I think we need to make sure that EU procurement rules can allow past performance to be factored into the awarding of public contacts in future,” he said.

The project has become mired in allegations of “kickbacks on kickbacks” for subcontractors, tripling the cost while children are forced to wait for life-saving treatment.

The hospital - which when completed could be the most expensive hospital in the world - has missed more than a dozen timelines to date.

Harris was health minister in 2019 when the contract was signed, and the current fiasco is a direct result of decisions he took when he agreed the construction contract.

A fresh focus on the long-running dispute over the children’s hospital has emerged after Health Minister Stephen Donnelly accused the main contractor of “holding the state to ransom” and wanting to extract “as much money from the taxpayer as possible”.

Sinn Féin spokesperson on Health, David Cullinane TD, described the latest news of a delay as “groundhog day”.

“Given the gross incompetence of this project under Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil’s watch from start to finish, nobody can have confidence that this latest date will be met either.

“As this fiasco rumbles on and on, it is the children of this state and their families who pay the price of a hospital that is now at least €1.5bn over budget, with that figure expected to rise further.

“The reality is that the dysfunction at the heart of this project has its origins in the original contract and is a product of failure on the part of former Ministers for Health Leo Varadkar, Simon Harris and now Stephen Donnelly.”

Government ministers have also indirectly condemned their own incompetence over the handling of public works projects, which fall under the remit of the Fine Gael Minister for Public Expenditure, Paschal Donohoe.

Normally minor construction projects commissioned by the Office of Public Works have seen €336,000 spent on a bicycle shed (pictured) and €1.4m for a security hut for the Department of Finance. There has been particular criticism of Minister Donohoe, who has ties to the firm contracted to build the bicycle shed.

Sinn Fein leader Mary Lou McDonald said that “courtesy of Fine Gael, Ireland has the most expensive hospital in the world, the most expensive bike shed in the world, an now the most expensive security hut in the world.

Urgent Appeal