Taoiseach hits back at Sinn Féin's criticism of his reaction to Trump's housing comment
Taoiseach Micheál Martin has hit back at criticism from Sinn Féin over his own reaction to US president Donald Trump's comments on Ireland's housing crisis in the Oval office.Mr Trump said that Ireland has a crisis because it is "doing so well" when asked how the State might build the tens of thousands of units required.He told the Irish Examiner that "they're doing so well, they can't produce houses fast enough". Mr Martin laughed and thanked him for his answer — a reaction which has been criticised by the opposition including Sinn Féin and the Social Democrats.Sinn Féin housing spokesman Eoin Ó Broin said that "joking about the housing crisis is never 'a good answer'".However, Micheál Martin dismissed the remarks as "over the top" and a "classic" tactic from the opposition."We have to be careful not to parrot Sinn Féin on every occasion because I equally said in the press conference, very empathetically — when I was asked what was the number one issue or what would I really wish for Ireland — I said the number one issue in Ireland is housing, and we need to build as many houses as we can, as quickly as we can, for young people in Ireland to be able to afford to buy or afford to rent," Mr Martin said.
I think it's classic, oppositions do that. I think that was an over-the-top reaction from Éoin Ó Broin.
The Taoiseach will spend his final day in Washington on Friday meeting with IDA client companies and will also travel to Hanley Energy in Virginia.Jewish groups pull out of meeting However, a meeting with US Jewish leaders in now in doubt after a number of groups pulled out and the the Taoiseach was accused of antisemitism.Asked about the cancellations, the Taoiseach has said hoped the meeting will still go ahead.Israeli Ambassador to the US Yechiel Leiter supported the move from Jewish representatives stating that “if any Jewish leader cancelled the meeting, they should be commended.”“It would show leadership. The battle for antisemitism starts with shunning antisemites,” Mr Leiter told the Jewish Insider publication.Asked about this, Mr Martin hit out at "any deliberate distortions of Ireland's position", particularly in relation to allegations of antisemitism.He confirmed that some of the organisations have now indicated they will not attend the meeting, but stressed that the Jewish groups in the US had initially reached out to arrange the discussion with him."We're very open to meeting with as broad a range of representative organisations in the Jewish community in America, again, to engage with them in a respectful way, in respect of our perspective on the Middle East and the conflict and so on and the war in Gaza."We've been very, very consistent in terms of condemning the horrific attack by Hamas on October 7.
We called for the unconditional release of hostages from the very beginning, an end to the war and a surge of humanitarian aid into Gaza.
"And indeed, after October 7, I visited kibbutz Be'eri in solidarity with what happened there. So again, we're open, and hopefully the meetings will go ahead."He added: "We were approached, and we responded in the right way. I've had good communications with the Jewish community in Ireland, and I've had meetings and engagement with representatives there."I intend to continue that, to make sure that there's not a misrepresentation of Ireland's position on this, or any deliberate distortions of Ireland's position, particularly in relation to allegations of antisemitism and so forth. We would be very robust in rejecting any false assertions to the contrary," Mr Martin said.A spokesperson for the Taoiseach later said the meeting is expected to go ahead at the invitation of a number of groups. "It's a private meeting and we expect there will be an appropriate update afterwards."
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