{"id":451513,"date":"2026-05-16T06:26:13","date_gmt":"2026-05-16T06:26:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/451513\/"},"modified":"2026-05-16T06:26:13","modified_gmt":"2026-05-16T06:26:13","slug":"bertie-ahern-immigration-comments-dont-represent-party-micheal-martin-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/451513\/","title":{"rendered":"Bertie Ahern immigration comments \u2018don\u2019t represent\u2019 party, Miche\u00e1l Martin says"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Bertie Ahern\u2019s comments on immigration \u201cdon\u2019t represent the views\u201d of Fianna F\u00e1il, Taoiseach Miche\u00e1l Martin has said.<\/p>\n<p>The former taoiseach made comments about Africans and Muslims which were circulated in a social media video.<\/p>\n<p>Ahern expressed \u201cworry\u201d about the next generation of Muslim people growing up in Ireland, and also said \u201cwe can\u2019t be taking in people from the Congo\u201d.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" height=\"411\" width=\"640\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/bertie-ahern-immigration-comments-don-t-represent-party-micheal-martin-says.jpg\" alt=\"Bertie Ahern shakes hands with Micheal Martin\" data-title=\"Fianna Fail Ard Fheis 2024\" data-copyright-holder=\"PA Archive\" data-copyright-notice=\"PA Archive\/PA Images\" data-credit=\"Damien Storan\" data-usage-terms=\"\"\/>Bertie Ahern\u2019s comments on immigration \u2018don\u2019t represent the views\u2019 of Fianna F\u00e1il, Taoiseach Miche\u00e1l Martin said (Damien Storan\/PA)<\/p>\n<p>Speaking to reporters at the Fianna F\u00e1il Ard Fheis on Friday, Martin said the former Fianna F\u00e1il leader\u2019s views \u201cdon\u2019t represent the views of the party\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe take the issue very seriously because we\u2019ve cultivated and promoted people who come from different ethnicities, who arrived in Ireland, who are not Irish citizens, and who now participate in Irish politics, and there\u2019s a strong membership in Fianna F\u00e1il in that sense,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBut we\u2019re not stopping people from canvassing, but we are making it very clear to all our canvassers what the party position is and what is permissible and what is not permissible.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He added: \u201c(Mr Ahern) didn\u2019t realise it was being recorded, that\u2019s no excuse by the way, but we can\u2019t physically stop people from canvassing, but we\u2019ve given very clear guidelines to our canvassers in terms of the principles of the party.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019ve been out on the canvas, we haven\u2019t had those kind of conversations, and I haven\u2019t heard of anyone canvassing with me having those conversations on the doorstep.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt did arise from time to time, housing was the biggest issue that came up when I was up in Dublin Central, and quite a number of times now, canvassing, and I\u2019d have to say housing was the key enduring issue for many.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Bertie Ahern\u2019s comments on immigration \u201cdon\u2019t represent the views\u201d of Fianna F\u00e1il, Taoiseach Miche\u00e1l Martin has said. The&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":451514,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-451513","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/451513","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=451513"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/451513\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/451514"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=451513"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=451513"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=451513"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}