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<\/p>\nHousing costs are still too high for many people in Ireland, Taoiseach Micheal Martin has said.<\/p>\n
Speaking to the media at the Fianna Fail Ard Fheis in Dublin, Mr Martin said the event would \u201cfocus on the future\u201d and denied that his party\u2019s biggest successes were in the past.<\/p>\n
The event is marking the 100th\u00a0anniversary of the party, which is the largest in Ireland\u2019s coalition Government.<\/p>\n
Mr Martin insisted the Government was making progress in building social and affordable properties to tackle Ireland\u2019s housing crisis.<\/p>\n
He said: \u201cWe came back (into Government) in 2020, there has been about 177,000 new housing units developed since then.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have made a difference but it is not enough, we need to do more than that.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Fianna Fail leader also pointed to a \u201cmassively increased population\u201d in the country.<\/p>\n
He said: \u201cThere are 2,500,000 more people living in the country than there would have been in 1926 \u2013 that creates its own pressures.<\/p>\n
\u201cMigration creates challenges as well in terms of the housing issue.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe do need to look at the composition of the homeless issue because it is not as it was.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cWe do have to increase the volume of housing and the supply, that is going to be key.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have significantly increased social housing compared to four years ago, we are now at 9,000 new builds.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut we want to get to about 10,000 newly built social houses per annum, which will help structurally with the homeless situation.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe percentage of first-time buyers now is away up compared to four or five years ago.<\/p>\n
\u201cCosts are still too high for many.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr Martin said his party had a \u201cclear roadmap\u201d for the future but said the country is in a \u201cmuch more fragmented political situation\u201d, both in Ireland and beyond.<\/p>\n
He said: \u201cIf you look at Britain, much more fragmentation across Europe, the vast, vast majority of governments now are coalition governments.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn some countries, we have five or six parties in government.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think that\u2019s ideal, but we had a good success in the last general election, not just in terms of numbers from where we were, but rather in terms of the cohort of people that have come in, which I thought, I think, that generation has brought significant energy to the party, and really gives a certain platform to build for the future, so one can never be definitive in terms of the next election some years away, or indeed the election after that, and there\u2019ll be bumps along the road, of course there will be.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut I think we\u2019ve turned the corner from where we the challenges we had in 2011.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr Martin said this year\u2019s budget would have a \u201cstrong emphasis\u201d on families.<\/p>\n
Asked, if the budget would be focused on families or businesses, the Taoiseach said that neither was \u201cmutually exclusive\u201d.<\/p>\n
He said: \u201cWe always have to have economic growth so we can have social progress.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere will be a very strong emphasis on families, to try and protect families because the costs are significant for families and children in particular.\u201d<\/p>\n
A large pro-Palestinian protest is taking place outside the Dublin Royal Convention Centre, where the Ard Fheis is taking place.<\/p>\n
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ADVERTISEMENT – CONTINUE READING BELOW<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Housing costs are still too high for many people in Ireland, Taoiseach Micheal Martin has said. Speaking to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":452023,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[196208,895,61,60,43,6988],"class_list":["post-452022","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-fianna-fail-ard-fheis","tag-fianna-fail","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news","tag-taoiseach-micheal-martin"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/452022","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=452022"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/452022\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/452023"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=452022"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=452022"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=452022"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}