Brendan Howlin believes Leo Varadkar will save Eoghan Murphy from dying a political death in housing because “he’s his friend”.
But he added this will not reform the policies of the Fine Gael-led Government who took power in 2011.
The Labour leader said Mr Murphy is “foundering” in the housing portfolio and will be moved on to another ministry by the Taoiseach.
Mr Howlin added the Government’s “rebuilding Ireland programme is a failure” and should be scrapped.
He said the main problem with Fine Gael is it is “blindly following” a privatised housing ideology.
He added this was the same model established by Fianna Fail in the 1990s with the housing model centred on “private land, private developers and profit”.
Mr Howlin said Fine Gael is now even worse than Fianna Fail as he called for a U-turn to make public housing supply a core goal of government.
Labour wants to invest €16billion in social and affordable housing to deliver 80,000 homes in just five years.
It produced a plan that includes the establishment of a new National Land Development Bank that could be funded from the Irish Strategic Investment Fund, which is awash with up to €20billion in savings.
By excluding the private sector, Mr Howlin said costs could be limited to €200,000 a house – and it could all be done quicker too.
He said is extremely critical of Mr Murphy for his role as minister in the housing debacle.
Mr Howlin said: “I believe Eoghan Murphy went in with the greatest of ambition but he’s completely out of his depth.
“Everybody at every level of housing delivery tells me that.
“Whether it’s a lack of understanding of the issues or a lack of the capacity to marshall the civil service and bodies under his control to deliver, he’s just out of his depth.
“He’s foundering at the moment and he’s an ambitious politician and nobody wants to get written off as a failure – and I’m afraid he’s heading in that direction.”
Asked if Mr Varadkar might give him an easier portfolio, he said: “I think he probably will. I mean, they’re friends.
Housing Minister Eoghan Murphy scores 3 out of 10 performance rating in latest poll
“It would be an act of friendship rather than saying we need change here. The important issue is, will we have a change of direction? We offered in the last meeting of the Dail a solution and it was rejected by four votes.”
This was Labour’s plan to make public house building the Government’s policy, with the public housing development bank to get the scheme started.
Mr Howlin added: “Amazingly Sinn Fein voted with Fine Gael to kill off the plan. That was most surprising.”
He also said the new European Parliament that emerges after the elections on May 24 will be the
“most important in a generation no matter what happens with Brexit”.
He added: “Labour parties across Europe held a quarter of all seats in the last parliament – the second largest group.
“Our group – the socialists and democrats – will continue to play a pivotal role.
Home ownership figures 'not good enough, Taoiseach Leo Varadkar admits
“Hopefully, our group’s candidate, Frans Timmermans, will be elected to replace Jean-Claude Juncker as President of the European Commission.
“But there is no doubt that the EU has been dominated by right-wing parties and right-wing national governments for too many years.
“The battle is to restore social Europe to the heart of the project.
“Europe needs to reduce inequalities. Europe needs to strengthen public services. And European workers need a pay rise.”
