17 April 2025
By Valerie Ryan
valerie@TheCork.ie
POLITICS: Fianna Fail’s latest-use emotional blackmail to defend staggering Ukrainian modular homes costs – says Cork TD
“A top contender for the most tin-eared statement of the year.”
Independent Ireland Chairman and TD for Cork North-Central Ken O’Flynn has launched a scathing attack on attempts by a midlands Fianna Fail TD to defend the €270m spent on modular housing for Ukrainians. His remarks came after Fianna Fail TD for Offaly Tony McCormack pushed back against public criticism of the €443,000 cost for each modular unit by stating to Midlands 103 radio that the price must be seen in the context of the emergency situation that arose in 2022:
“Not content with presiding over a multi-billion-euro international protection accommodation system that is enriching a small elite while impoverishing communities across every county in the state through the decimation of their tourist and emergency housing infrastructure; Fianna Fail are now out defending exorbitant and inexcusable costs for modular units for Ukrainians. This is a level of political stupidity that boggles the mind.”
“Pushing back against accountability on these costs by engaging in what amounts to a form of emotional blackmail is not just arrogant and contemptuous, it is patronising nonsense, and I am not afraid to call it out as being so.”
“Deputy McCormack seems to think we should all just cop ourselves on, forget about that quarter of a billion-euro bill and remember 2022-as if that puts an end to the matter. This is idiocy of the worst kind.”
File photo of Kenneth O’Flynn TD
“What is worse is that we now know the cost of constructing and linking these units up to local utilities does not include the cost of the land-meaning the cost for each unit is likely beyond half a million euros each, at a time when our homelessness figures are exploding. We also know that those on the social housing lists are effectively barred from accessing these units as they are reserved exclusively for Ukrainian residents.”
“Tell me how I explain that to homeless mothers and their children in Mallow or Cork North Central who are forced to remain in cramped box rooms or who have been trapped in emergency accommodation for years on end.”
“Fianna Fail needs to wake up to the level of anger and indeed fury that is out there regarding issues of this kind. They reek of financial mismanagement, preferential treatment and political cowardice. There is no defending half a million-euro modular homes for Ukrainians while thousands of people here are still being handed vouchers by local authorities and told to go and look after themselves. You would think Fianna Fail would get that.”