Housing Minister Darragh O’Brien spent €41,000 on his Housing for All policy launch, it has emerged.
The Housing Minister’s huge spend on the launch included €15,000 for graphic design services, €5,000 for a wall stand at the launch and €3,000 for a professional copywriter.
The spending on the one launch is above the average industrial wage for a worker for a year and would make a deposit for a decent house that so many find hard to save for.
A spokeswoman for the Department of Housing said that the cash was spent on “the costs of publishing the Housing for All strategy and its subsequent promotion”.
Housing For All is Mr O’Brien’s landmark housing policy that he has presented as his solution to Ireland’s worsening housing crisis.
It was launched to great fanfare last September with promises that the Government will deliver 33,000 houses a year over the next decade.
The minister is staking his political career on the plan, with his Fianna
Fail leadership ambitions dependent on the plan.
Sinn Fein housing spokesman Eoin O Broin who obtained the figures through response to a Parliamentary Question, said it wasn’t “justified” to spend so much money on the launch of more “failed policies”.
Mr O Broin said: “It is hard to see how this spending is justified.
“There is very little of substance in the minister’s new Housing Plan.
“Much of it is a rehash of Rebuilding Ireland.
“No amount of expensive copywriting and graphic design and layout can hide the fact that the housing crisis is getting worse because the Government is continuing with the same failed policies of their predecessors.”
In the Housing for All plan launch on September 2 last, the Government made the following mission statement: “Housing for All is the government’s plan to increase the supply of housing to an average of 33,000 per year over the next decade.
“The plan provides for an optimal mix of social, affordable and private housing for sale and rent.
“These measures are supported by over €4billion in guaranteed State funding every year, the highest ever level of government investment in building social and affordable housing.
“The plan also includes measures to support availability of the land, workforce, funding and capacity to enable both the public and private sectors to meet the targets.”
The opposition disputes that the amount of €4billion a year is being spent.
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