News

The Social Democrats are pleased to announce that South Dublin County Councillor Dermot Looney has joined the party. Councillor Looney (34) was first elected to South Dublin County Council in 2009. He was re-elected for the Templeogue-Terenure ward as an Independent in 2014. He is from Greenhills, Dublin 12 and works as a primary school […]

The Social Democrats’ Galway representative has called on gardaí to step up safety measures for minority groups following an attack on a mosque in the city last night. Niall Ó Tuathail described the incident as cowardly, and said he had recently written to local gardaí to raise concerns about the emergence of an apparent neo-Nazi […]

NAMA’s concerns about the hoarding of land which should be used for housing could be tackled with increased penalties and incentives contained in an already published Social Democrats’ Bill. The party’s co-leader Catherine Murphy TD said government support for the legislation would show that the Minister for Finance was serious about tackling this problem, which […]

Speaking in the Dáil today, co-leader of the Social Democrats, Róisín Shortall TD, told the Taoiseach that “we cannot wait for the results of yet another review while the force continues to flounder.” In response to the Taoiseach’s claim that the new Commission on the Future of Policing would address the cultural issues in the […]

The Social Democrats today publish a Bill to free up more vacant land for housing. Publishing the Bill today, Social Democrats co-leader Catherine Murphy TD said: “The housing crisis is not caused by a shortage of land to develop. It’s down to the fact that we are not building on the land that we have. Urban […]

Co-leader of the Social Democrats Róisín Shortall TD called on the Minister for Housing to urgently introduce an affordable housing scheme. Speaking today in the Dáil, Deputy Shortall said: “Given the pricing trends we’ve seen reported this week, it’s clear the government needs to intervene now. Without urgent introduction of an affordable housing scheme home […]

The first entries on the Dublin City Council Vacant Site Register, published today, show how little is being done by Government to use publicly controlled land to deliver new housing supply in Dublin. Róisín Shortall, co-leader of the Social Democrats, said “In total the sites are valued at €77.7m. Of the 25 sites listed, 11 […]

The Social Democrats have called for an immediate response from the Minister for Children, Katherine Zappone, to the revelations regarding the role of Tusla in the Sergeant Maurice McCabe affair. Speaking this morning, Social Democrat co-leader Róisín Shortall said; “The extraordinary sequence of events regarding these vile allegations made against Sergeant McCabe require a full […]

The Government must immediately address the funding shortage in home-care if its late conversion to the Right to Home-Care is to be believed, said Social Democrats T.D. Róisín Shortall. In advance of the Dáil debate on the Nursing Home Support Scheme (Amendment) Bill 2016, Ms. Shortall said that services for older people have been neglected for […]