Results 1,701-1,720 of 50,909 for speaker:Micheál Martin
- Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (19 Mar 2025)
Micheál Martin: My focus now, fundamentally, is to work on a whole set of policies that can get us more houses built faster for young people in particular, so that they can afford to either buy or rent homes. There is a range of issues we have to examine in that regard and continue to develop. As I said, we have already allocated an additional €800 million in respect of housing in the first two to...
- Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (19 Mar 2025)
Micheál Martin: Obviously the county councils and the city councils will then have to adopt and change their plans to allow for more zoning to allow more houses to be constructed.
- Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (19 Mar 2025)
Micheál Martin: I would appreciate if Deputy Bacik would send me a paper on the housing solidarity bond. It is a headline at the moment but if she can send me a paper on it we will examine it. Effectively, through the CREL initiative, for example, and the LDA has effectively been upfronting the financing of a lot of private sector housing. That is de facto what is happening right now through the LDA.
- Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (19 Mar 2025)
Micheál Martin: There is an issue with the cost of financing but the State cannot be the first and last bank of resort in respect of house construction. Probably up to €7 billion and more this year is the totality of State spending on housing.
- Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (19 Mar 2025)
Micheál Martin: Whatever way we look at it, we do have to look at the cost of financing and I have mentioned here that the commercial banks have to do more in respect of lending at sustainable rates to builders to build in the private sector. We will continue to focus on that work.
- Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (19 Mar 2025)
Micheál Martin: As of now the State is already in the space of facilitating acting as a catalyst in terms of the private sector, with State underpinning essentially or back up.
- Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (19 Mar 2025)
Micheál Martin: I am always open to new ideas, to concrete and substantive ideas. I was not particularly impressed with what the Labour Party put forward in the general election campaign. Establishing a new national building agency would have only delayed things. It would take years to establish and it is a kind of rowing the clock back to earlier eras and to models that simply would not work now in terms...
- Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (19 Mar 2025)
Micheál Martin: There was no clear blueprint, no paper in respect of how this agency was going to be established.
- Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (19 Mar 2025)
Micheál Martin: If the Deputy has other ideas, that is fine, but they have to be focused on getting more houses built and getting them built faster, which I have said consistently over the last while. From about 2020 onwards about 130,000 new homes were built, which is more than anything in the previous decade or more. Momentum did switch. There was a turn and a significant shift in momentum in terms...
- Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (19 Mar 2025)
Micheál Martin: Two and a bit months-----
- Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (19 Mar 2025)
Micheál Martin: It is two months in office, despite Deputies' best efforts. An extra €800 million on top of the outturn last year has been allocated to housing. There is €450 million for 3,000 new homes and also funding to fund substantial numbers of tenant in situ homes under that particular programme. The State's investment is enormous relative to historic norms in respect of housing in...
- Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (19 Mar 2025)
Micheál Martin: I think that is pathetic. The Deputy accuses me of spoofing? Get off the stage. No one was sniggering at any housing problem. The Deputy knows that.
- Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (19 Mar 2025)
Micheál Martin: It is pathetic - the protestation and the Deputy's attempt to exploit that particular moment, completely oblivious and refusing to reference the actual substance of what I said in terms of housing being the number one priority in Ireland. The Deputy can criticise our policies as a Government but she should not try to say she has a monopoly of concern or empathy on the housing question....
- Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (19 Mar 2025)
Micheál Martin: -----on many an occasion for Sinn Féin, but when it comes to putting the party fist as opposed to the country first, Sinn Féin will always put the party first.
- Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (19 Mar 2025)
Micheál Martin: That is why Deputy McDonald did not go to the US-----
- Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (19 Mar 2025)
Micheál Martin: On spurious grounds, she did not go to the US.
- Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (19 Mar 2025)
Micheál Martin: No one is convinced-----
- Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (19 Mar 2025)
Micheál Martin: -----about your false assertions.
- Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (19 Mar 2025)
Micheál Martin: Ní aontaím in aon chor leis an Teachta as ucht an méid a dúirt sí. Níl aon amhras ach gurb é an t-ábhar is tábhachtaí agus is práinní sa tír seo ná cúrsaí tithíochta. An phríomhaidhm atá againn mar Rialtas ná níos mó tithe a chruthú agus é sin a dhéanamh chomh tapa...
- Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (19 Mar 2025)
Micheál Martin: -----and discuss those issues with them. On the housing issue, if I could comment for a moment, there were several projections throughout 2024 in respect of completions. We have exceeded targets, particularly in 2022 and 2023. We exceeded Central Bank targets and other targets that suggested we would come in lower. That is the position. The first quarter of the following year is when the...