Mattie McGrath Condemns Government on Housing and Landlords
Mattie McGrath criticised the government's handling of housing policy, defending ordinary landlords and attacking corporate landlords and vulture funds. He accused the Fine Gael independent alliance government of an ideological aversion to building local authority houses and failing ordinary people.
Speech highlights
McGrath opened by apologising for the absence of Dr Michael Hilliway and declared he was not a landlord. He said proposals touted as modelled in Berlin and New York had not been implemented in Berlin and warned against simplistic solutions.
Stance on landlords and vulture funds
He rejected the blanket demonisation of landlords and drew a distinction between "ordinary accidental landlords" and corporate landlords. McGrath accused vulture funds and banks of contributing to homelessness and criticised the government for welcoming corporate interests while ignoring small landlords.
Critique of government and parliamentary presence
McGrath directly attacked the Fine Gael independent alliance government, saying it had an ideological hang-up about local authority housing and neglected people from "the cradle to the grave." He said there was no senior minister or TDs present, pointed out the government lost two votes in the Senate that evening, and declared "the life is gone out of this government."
Electoral warning and consequences
He warned of electoral consequences in by-elections, saying voters were "waiting in the long grass" and would use their ballots in response to nine years of what he described as corporate greed. McGrath said the government would eventually be held to account at the polls.
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Well, let's go on call, I too, first of all I want to apologise for our colleague and good friend, Dr Michael Hilliway, who's absent to, you know, to no reason of his own. I want to declare also that I'm not a landlord, never was, but unlike some of the previous speakers here, especially in the People Before Profit, I don't demonise every landlord in the country. What are we going to do, drive them all out of existence and then where do we go? I mean, we just have to be a reasonable affair here. Fine, this is meant to be introduced in Berlin and other countries in New York, but it hasn't as other speakers have said, it's not implemented yet in Berlin, so it's a simplistic solution. We need real solutions here, but we also need rid of this Fine Gael independent alliance government because they have an ideological hang-up about building local authority houses and about looking after whether they be students, well literally from the cradle to the grave, they don't want to look after anyone. So that's the fundamental problems and talk to Toby Ian is 100% right. They welcome them the vulture funds, welcome them and still allow them and the banks are making people homeless and indeed ordinary accidental landlords who might happen to be left the house or bequeathed a house or bequeathed a house or whatever, and they want to help with those, no interest in those, the corporate landlords you want to protect. Big business, you never were interested in the ordinary people, never ever. But I can tell you something, Minister, and there's no senior minister here tonight and there's no TDs, it's empty. You lost two votes in the Senate tonight because you had no one even to propose a vote. The life is gone out of this government and the sooner you lie down, the better. But listen, you've no interest in the ordinary people, but they have a lot of interest in you and they're waiting for you, as they show in the by-elections, they're waiting in the long grass and it might be the middle of January and the grass will be low, but they'll find you and they'll find you with the pound louis in the ballot box and you'll be banished because we've had, we've had four and four, eight, nine years of you now and you've done nothing, only nine fat cast pockets and corporate greed and vulture funds and everything else and that's what you're good at, that's what you did always, but you'll get your answer to be the head of the conic with you. Thank you.
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