{"id":203492,"date":"2025-11-27T19:07:10","date_gmt":"2025-11-27T19:07:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/203492\/"},"modified":"2025-11-27T19:07:10","modified_gmt":"2025-11-27T19:07:10","slug":"harris-accuses-sinn-fein-of-taking-big-money-from-big-american-building-companies-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/203492\/","title":{"rendered":"Harris accuses Sinn F\u00e9in of \u2018taking big money from big American building companies\u2019 \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sinn F\u00e9in<\/a> leader Mary Lou McDonald<\/a> has been accused of flying to the US to \u201ctake the dollars\u201d from \u201cbig businesses, companies and builders\u201d by T\u00e1naiste Simon Harris<\/a>. <\/p>\n

The Fine Gael leader said Sinn F\u00e9in was \u201cthe party of taking big money from big American building companies\u201d and that its deputy leader Pearse Doherty\u2019s \u201cJack in the box routine doesn\u2019t build homes\u201d.<\/p>\n

Mr Harris launched the scathing attack on the party during Leaders\u2019 Questions in the D\u00e1il 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 <\/a>since the same time last year. <\/p>\n

Mr Doherty said Fine Gael\u2019s approach to housing and renting was to let the market \u201crun wild, protecting profits and abandoning ordinary people\u201d. <\/p>\n

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. <\/p>\n

Mr Harris had promised he would increase the renters tax credit if elected and had broken that promise, \u201clike so many others\u201d, he said. <\/p>\n

\u201cSimon says on one hand, Simon does on the other hand. The election is over and Simon doesn\u2019t care,\u201d Mr Doherty said. <\/p>\n

In response, Mr Harris said ESRI analysis had shown that 62 per cent of properties nationally saw no change in rent year on year. <\/p>\n

He said Sinn F\u00e9in\u2019s policy on rent pressure zones (RPZs) was \u201cJekyll and Hyde\u201d and that he had heard differing views on the issue from Mary Lou McDonald and the party\u2019s housing spokesman Eoin \u00d3 Broin. <\/p>\n

[\u00a0Verona Murphy says photo opportunity with Sinn F\u00e9in does not mean she supports party\u2019s BillOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

The T\u00e1naiste also said that Mr Doherty was \u201ccelebrating\u201d his 15th anniversary as Opposition spokesperson for finance. <\/p>\n

\u201cFive finance ministers later, you are still sitting in the same seat because the people of Ireland don\u2019t trust you when it comes to the economy,\u201d he told the Sinn F\u00e9in TD. <\/p>\n

\u201cThey know that the angry Jack in the box routine doesn\u2019t build homes Pearse.\u201d Mr Harris then went on to repeatedly call the deputy leader \u201cangry Pearse\u201d. <\/p>\n

He said there was only one party in the Oireachtas receiving \u201cvery significant financial funding\u201d from builders and construction companies. <\/p>\n

Mr Harris said the published accounts from the US fundraising arm, Friends of Sinn F\u00e9in, in 2024 showed that the bulk of their donations, which came to a total of \u20ac366,000, were from construction companies and builders, including $20,000 from one such company. <\/p>\n

\u201cYou tell the young people of Ireland you\u2019re 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,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

[\u00a0Sinn F\u00e9in\u2019s merchandising arm donates \u20ac205,000 to party in BelfastOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

\u201cYou are the party of taking big money from big American building companies. You are a hypocrite.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sinn F\u00e9in leader Mary Lou McDonald has been accused of flying to the US to \u201ctake the dollars\u201d…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":203493,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[9,10,18,13,14,553,6,19,17,11,12,15,16,16594,5,44,47,7,8],"class_list":{"0":"post-203492","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-breaking-news","9":"tag-breakingnews","10":"tag-eire","11":"tag-featured-news","12":"tag-featurednews","13":"tag-fine-gael","14":"tag-headlines","15":"tag-ie","16":"tag-ireland","17":"tag-latest-news","18":"tag-latestnews","19":"tag-main-news","20":"tag-mainnews","21":"tag-mary-lou-mcdonald","22":"tag-news","23":"tag-simon-harris","24":"tag-sinn-fein","25":"tag-top-stories","26":"tag-topstories"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115623234573974498","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203492","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=203492"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203492\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/203493"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=203492"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=203492"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=203492"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}