Address by Tánaiste and Uachtarán Fhianna Fáil, Micheál Martin TD, to Meeting of the Fianna Fáil Parliamentary Party

I want to welcome you all today. We are meeting at the start of the final six months of this Dáil and with an intense programme of legislation in the coming weeks and months.

 

From the very first day of this Dáil we have said that our first and absolute priority is to use our mandate to work on behalf of the Irish people – and this will continue. Each of us has a mandate to represent our constituencies and our party and we carry the extra responsibility of leading government action in many of the largest and most important areas of public policy and public services.

 

That is why the overwhelming focus of this meeting will be on the issues. We will have a range of workshops with ministers where we will go through the challenges facing our country today. We will take time to talk about the upcoming Budget and our continued insistence on actions which are fair, progressive, and effective in developing vital services and helping people with pressing needs.

 

We will of course also discuss organisational matters, as we do every year. As we all know, for four years we faced headline after headline writing us off and claiming that we were in a distant third. The vast majority of interviews I gave in recent years involved being asked about the polls and the idea that Fianna Fáil was an also ran. We have all seen these polls, particularly online polling, and these have been wide off the mark.

 

June’s results threw the polling predictions out the window. Once again, we returned as the largest party of local government, and we doubled our seats in the European Parliament.

 

I want to thank everyone for their hard work and to acknowledge our great candidates.

 

At the core of our success is that we have focused our time in getting our heads down and doing the hard work of focusing on the people’s business. I know there are many who have said that we have been traditional, and we have put the substance of government ahead of the frantic day to day politics of chasing coverage.  That’s a fair comment, and it’s also something I have no doubt has underpinned the strength which so many overlook.

 

Whenever I am meeting people on the street or at their doorsteps people always want to talk about a positive agenda. They don’t just want to complain, they want to talk about how we can make a difference.

 

They are proud of what their country has achieved, but they want it to do more. They want to hear concrete, credible, and balanced ideas about what can be done. It’s the exact opposite of a lot of the political debate which you find at a national level.

 

Whatever way you look at it, the is fact the biggest division in Irish politics at the moment is between those who see problems and want to solve them and those who see problems and just want to exploit them.

 

Fianna Fáil is absolutely clear on where we stand – we believe in a positive, progressive agenda for this republic. We believe that Ireland has achieved a lot.

 

It has achieved positive and sustained progress. But we also accept absolutely clearly that we have to move forward – we have to take new steps to overcome real and sustained problems.

 

Four and a half years ago our party voted overwhelmingly in favour of going to government in the largest democratic vote ever held by an Irish political party. We negotiated hard, securing a significant move towards fairer policies and a commitment to development of public services.

 

And when it came to taking up ministerial responsibilities we didn’t seek easy challenges, we sought the toughest challenges. We sought them because we wanted to show that progress could be made on even the most intractable problems. No one term of government could turn everything around, but we believed that we could build real momentum.

 

Many people were surprised when we sought responsibility for health, for housing, for education, for agriculture and for protecting the economy in the middle of the fastest-moving recession ever recorded outside wartime. But we believed then, and we believe it today more than ever, that politics must be about leading change. Politics must be about substance, about being willing to tackle even the hardest issues.

 

And I believe we will go before the people with a record of real achievements. A record of tackling serious emergencies and also beginning programmes of long-term and sustained progress on vital issues.

 

In the populist drift of a lot of coverage of issues there is a reluctance to ever acknowledge progress, but people see through this. Just look at the facts.

 

In housing, we have been relentless in finding ways to build a new momentum for home building. There are today over 115,000 more homes in Ireland than when we started our work. It has been intense work which has involved action on every level, but the fact is that we delivered more houses in four years than in the previous nine combined.

 

We’ve managed to start a new era in social housing, create new affordable housing initiatives and will soon enact comprehensive legislation to deal with the often excessive and unreasonable barriers which planning procedures can put in the way of building homes. And in the face of equally relentless opposition, our Housing for All plan has put in place the essential foundations to deliver a major acceleration in housing.

 

In health, we refused to accept the idea that you just had to accept problems as endemic. Our programme of investment and reform means that there are thousands more doctors and nurses delivering front-line care – delivering real reductions in waiting times for patients and creating the platform to go much further in the months and years ahead.

 

And in taking on the biggest public health crisis in modern history, we worked to limit its impact and delivered a world-leading vaccine programme.

 

In education, we were determined to give sustained support. The largest programme of building and modernisation in the history of Irish schools is underway.

There are certainly places where schools have empty posts, but the facts show that there are 7,000 more teachers in our schools today than when we again took charge of education. That’s delivered the lowest ever class sizes, the largest ever provision for special education and helped push Ireland to the top of international tables for helping young people to stay in school.

 

Because agriculture is at the heart of so much of our community life and it underpins our largest and most important indigenous industry, it is vitally important for our country. It also faces many urgent challenges and is constantly evolving. For us, agriculture and rural communities are and will always remain a key priority in government.

 

That is why we sought responsibility for it, and it is why we have devoted so much attention at home and internationally in promoting the interests of a strong, successful farming sector.

 

In negotiations at all levels, we’ve worked to protect incomes and also to create new supports and opposed efforts to place an unfair burden on Irish farmers to achieve different national targets.

 

In Finance we’ve ensured progressive changes and helped save jobs during the pandemic and pay bills during the international cost of living crisis. But we’ve also taken radical decisions to ensure that pensions and services can be protected, that investment programmes are secured, and that Ireland can get through an international downturn.

 

The reserve funds we have created are dramatic statement of belief in serving the interests of Ireland not just today but also in the years ahead.

 

And the same commitment to sustainable policies is true in every area where Fianna Fáil ministers have worked through the last four and a half years.

 

In every area, we have worked every day to deliver lasting investment, development, and reform for the Irish people.

 

As Taoiseach and now Tánaiste, I have sought to reflect our commitment to delivering a government focused on the hard work of tackling problems. When we agreed to enter into this government, we also set out our commitment to focusing not on short-term politics but on the needs of the people. I have always worked to treat all ministers fairly, respecting different interests and acknowledging shared effort.

 

Fianna Fáil’s work in this government has shown a sustained commitment to promoting the public interest and helping our country meet critical challenges.

 

We’re proud of this record. We will defend it against anyone.

 

But let there be no mistake – when the time comes for the next general election campaign our only focus will be on what we want to achieve in the future. We will talk with the Irish people about the progress and the new policies we believe can and should be delivered by the next government.

 

We absolutely do not ignore the scale and importance of the challenges people face. We’ve put in place vital foundations for permanent progress, but we have to show where we will go next.

 

We intend to fight an election based on substance. We want an election where the public are shown an ambitious programme on the issues which matter most to people.

 

We have a successful economy which we must protect and grow – and we must use this success to deliver sustained progress on the social, cultural, economic, and environmental issues which are central to our future.

 

We are going to be very clear on exactly what action we want to implement, and the priority we will give to specific critical issues.

 

It will be a programme of investment and reform, delivering real help to families, communities, and businesses in every part of the country.

 

And in this we are also going to set out a positive agenda for the future of rural and provincial Ireland.

 

We absolutely believe that there is a bright future for rural and provincial communities. We can protect and grow strong, indigenous businesses. We can support local communities in terms of schools, public services and securing safe and clean city and town centres.

 

Over recent months there has been an ongoing consultation within the parliamentary party and the wider party as a whole about our programme for the next five years. I want in particular to thank James Browne and everyone who has given their time to this.

 

A lot of highly innovative ideas have been submitted and are being developed. In every area of public policy, you and our members have come shown a real commitment to new policies and an openness to change.

 

We have a Budget in a just over two weeks’ time. There are critical challenges for next year in order to build on our programme of expanding critical services and helping people to meet the rising cost of living. This is our focus now – we have a mandate to government, and we have an obligation to govern and not engage in some form of permanent campaign.

 

There will be time enough in the future to talk about our proposals, but for the moment we have to complete this mandate. To focus on governing ahead of politics. And this is what we will do in the upcoming budget.

 

We will find a balance between the many demands there are for budgetary measures.

 

The most aggressively negative opposition in modern Irish history will of course attack everything. They will claim that there is nothing positive and they will shout “more” no matter what we announce.

 

They have put politics first in everything. Launching policy after policy in the hope that people will not have the time or the resources to see through them.

 

Their recent housing policy will find its place as a great work of creative fiction. Having opposed all of the policies which are now delivering more homes, they picked random figures out of the air – claiming that they can cut supports, remove incentives, slash prices and somehow, out of mid-air, more homes will materialise. It’s a policy defined by a desperate cynicism, and it won’t survive the proper scrutiny it will get during the election.

 

We will keep doing the much harder work of serious policy development, of turning policy into action and of investing in our country’s future.

 

This is an approach which many people spent four years dismissing, as they assumed that the public was more interesting in political stunts. But we have proven again that the public is willing to support a party which takes them seriously, which puts substance first and which works to represent them and their concerns.

 

Ireland has achieved incredible things. But no country is without problems. We believe that Ireland’s can be overcome with a positive and ongoing agenda of change. That’s what we’re ging to discuss and this will be our focus in the months and years ahead.