Ireland must look to new countries to trade with if we are to keep jobs, the Taoiseach has warned.<\/p>\n
Addressing his party\u2019s Ard Fheis Miche\u00e1l Martin said \u201cshort-term gestures\u201d will not protect the economy given the current global uncertainty and instead action \u201cas serious as the problems we face\u201d is required.<\/p>\n
Telling party members that he would not be flying budget kites, or \u201cwasting time\u201d attacking other parties, Mr Martin said: \u201cOur only priority must be answering the needs of this time \u2013 and setting out a course forward for our country. Let others practice the politics of anger \u2013 the politics of exploiting people\u2019s problems.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur duty, our obligation, is to do the much harder work of solving those problems.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
During the televised address, Mr Martin acknowledged that many people are worried about the future, and stressed that a \u201cnew national effort\u201d is needed to secure our ability to trade with the world.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not just about new industries \u2013 trade is essential for farming, rural communities and the agrifood sector. We export over \u20ac21 billion of food products to 180 countries across the world.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have to open new markets \u2013 reducing our reliance on traditional ones.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have to build up our presence and our political engagement with more countries.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0Citing the divisive Ceta deal, Mr Martin said there has been a fourfold increase in exports to Canada because of free trade but hit out at those continue to try to stop the ratification of the agreement which will secure this extra trade.<\/p>\n
\n It\u2019s a hard reality of politics today that so many parties ignore the economy.\n <\/p>\n
Turning to education, Mr Martin strongly defended a ban on smartphones during school time.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo App, and no AI model will ever replace the need to develop your own ability to reason and interact with others.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat is why our decision to ban smartphones during school time is right and it is why we will continue to help schools to cope with disruptive developments,\u201d Mr Martin said. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ireland must look to new countries to trade with if we are to keep jobs, the Taoiseach has…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":452432,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[72,113,895,61,60,1843],"class_list":["post-452431","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-business","tag-economy","tag-fianna-fail","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-micheal-martin"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/452431","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=452431"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/452431\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/452432"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=452431"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=452431"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=452431"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}