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FIANNA FÁIL LEADER Micheál Martin has said he is not “instinctively against” the idea of a rent freeze.
Answering questions sent via Whatsapp for TheJournal.ie’s general election podcast, The Candidate, Martin agreed that the proposal of a rent freeze will be examined if he gets into government.
The party leader has also committed to an extra €5 for the pension, each year for five years, if Fianna Fáil get into government.
Currently, a tenant living in a rent pressure zone can only have their rent increased by 4% every two years under laws first introduced in December 2016 by then-Housing Minister Simon Coveney in order to tackle spiralling rents.
Under the legislation, annual rent rises are capped at 4% in certain areas.
RPZs are located in areas of the country where rents are highest and where households have the greatest difficulty finding affordable accommodation.
Martin said he will reduce the amount peoples’ rents can rise in rent pressure zones, reducing the 4% increase cap.
All these promises come as Fianna Fáil launch its election manifesto today.
His comments on a rent freeze come one day after his party decided against supporting such a move, with the party’s housing spokesperson stating that Fianna Fáil had been advised against “a flat rent freeze”.
The party said it had been advised that a rent freeze would be unconstitutional, something legal minds have been questioning this week.
Speaking to TheJournal.ie, Martin said:
I think what we can do, you’re correct, we can examine it in its full breadth, once we get into the Dáil, and it should be examined. Because I’m not instinctively against it. I think something has to happen in relation to rents.
He added:
“Obviously if we are in government we will have an Attorney General where we can get other reassessments in terms of the legal implications of it and also perhaps in the new Dáil have a proper teasing out of the issues, which we didn’t have this time.”
Martin said his party voted for Sinn Féin’s rent freeze Bill to progress to the next stage as he wanted the details of the proposal to be teased out.
“We had asked the government for its legal advice at the time, and they didn’t release it. But no one thought there was going to be an election in February, if we’re honest, people thought this would go to committee… where all the implications of this could have been examined,” he said.
On the legal advice the party received in relation to the constitution and a rent freeze, Martin said barrister Darren Lehane’s legal opinion is “a very substantial opinion”.
“It is a legal opinion you have to take on board, any legal opinion isn’t fact, but it is a very strong legal opinion which should govern your decision of whether to make a commitment to people,” said.
When put to him that other legal opinions, such as that of David Kenny, Professor of Law at Trinity College, suggest that there is a good chance the courts could uphold such a move to freeze rents, Martin said he could not make election promises on possibilities.
“These are solemn election commitments people want from us, we can’t go on a wing and a prayer,” he said.
He added:
I am very conscious I am in a general election, I don’t want to make false promises, I don’t want to make commitments that wont be realised when the general election is over.
Rising rents
On the matter of Rent Pressure Zones, Martin has been on the campaign trail stating that he wants them strengthened.
When asked what that means, the Fianna Fáil leader said he wants to see the percentage at which someone’s rent can be increased reduced.
When asked for further details about the reforms, he said:
I am not going to get into specifics, but we’re going to see what’s possible.
When asked if it would be lower than 4%, and perhaps as low as 2%, Martin replied: “Yes.”
A fiver for pensioners every year
The other issue that has dominated this general election campaign so far is the pension age. Members of the public have also raised concerns about the number of over-65s having to sign on the dole.
The issue has caught all the main political parties off-guard due to the pension policy being in the works for ten years.
The pension age is to increase to 67 from 1 January next year, so there will be a gap between the retirement age in people’s contracts, and the age at which they can receive a State pension.
Today, the Taoiseach confirmed that the transitional pensions Fine Gael are offering to bridge the gap between retirement age and the pension age won’t apply to 65-year-olds.
“There will be no change for people who are currently 65,” the Taoiseach said on Thursday, but added that the transitional pension was “quite a substantial change in policy”.
He confirmed that 65 year olds will have to sign on under the new plans.
There had been confusion on whether the transitional payment would apply to 65 year olds as well as those aged 66 after the press release sent out by Social Protection Minister Regina Doherty only mentioned 66 year olds.
No signing on the dole
Martin confirmed to TheJournal.ie that they too plan to bring back the transitional pension payment which was scrapped back in 2014.
However, Fianna Fáil plans to bring this transitional payment in for 65 year olds upwards, with Martin confirming that 65 year olds will not have to sign on under his party’s plan.
“First of all we are going to make sure that people who are 65 don’t have to sign on the dole,” he said.
“There will be a transition payment brought in to cover that and also… we won’t be going ahead with the 67 extension,” said Martin.
“The most important thing with pensions is that into the future, as the country develops, that we have sustainable pensions system that people will get their pensions.”
What many will see as a bid to chase the older peoples’ vote, he added that under Fianna Fáil, the pension payment will be increased
We want people to get pensions when they retire and we will be increasing that pension on an annual basis by €5 a year over the next five years and that is our commitment.
However, there will have to be an examination of the overall issue, he said, adding:
“I actually think there has to be fairness too, between private and public sector workers – I don’t think you can have one rule for one and another rule for others.
“It is an issue for people, and we have to respond to it,” said Martin.
When asked about politicians’ gold-plated pensions that they receive before the turn 65, Martin said there has been reforms in recent years to TDs’ pensions, stating that some “people get into politics, lose out and then they are left in limbo again – there are many complexities to pensions”.
TheJournal.ie’s Election 2020 series of The Candidate will sit down with each party leader and put your questions, recorded by you, to them, to help you decide who to vote for on 8 February.
Subscribe to The Candidate now to catch our full interview with Michéal Martin later today.
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Normal service is resumed
@Expendable: When did it stop?
@Expendable: Don’t try to white-wash the last administration. Trump’s interview with Fox Business, after approving a 59 Tomahawk missile strike on Syria ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ETjmylZaFs ) and not Iraq, as Trump claimed. US military policy is not something I usually approve of, regardless of which president is in office, but the reality is that the countries of the world claim to be civilised, but act solely on the basis of their own long term interests and the civilians caught in the middle are of no importance.
@Expendable: “During Mr Obama’s eight years in office, 1,878 drone strikes were carried out, according to researchers. Since Mr Trump was elected in 2016, there have been 2,243 drone strikes. The Republican president has also made some of the operations, the ones outside of war zones, more secretive. As a result, things have different today: under Mr Trump, there are more drone strikes – and less transparency.”
@Cian Nolan: sure the same folks that gave the orders to Trump are giving them to Biden. The decomratic process is a joke to keep the people fighting while the real owners run off with all the money. Simple strategy and happens to work quite well.
@David Jordan: True. Barack Hussein Obama didn’t seem too interested in destroying ISIS, for some reason.
@bread of heaven: That is complete lies, the US led war against ISIS started under Obama in early 2015.
Here’s the US bombing ISIS, under Obama in early 2015, outside the ISIS besieged Kurdish town of Konani (siege of Kobani March 2014-March 2015).
Kurdish YPG fighters call in a US Air strike on ISIS (Battle of Kobani).
It was Obama that established the coalition cooperation with the Kurdish YPG and supportted their fight against ISIS. The US later, under Obama in October 2015, rebranded them as Syrian Democratic Forces. They were given arms, training and full support by the US.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syrian_Democratic_Forces
However, after their sacrifice, Trump abandoned them and allowed Turkey to invade Rojavia (Syrian Kurdish homeland in Northern Syria). They are now protected from further Turkish aggression by Russia and Syrian government forces.
@bread of heaven: Go asleep and keep dreaming
@Expendable: If anyone thought biden, a strange character who sniffs children’s hair in public and a man so quick to begin to ruin women’s sport within a month of being inaugurated by forcing them to compete against men would be a decent guy then they were deluded, pelosi and obama will call the shots.
@David Jordan: America dropped 26,171 bombs in 2016. What a bloody end to Obama’s reign.
President Obama did reduce the number of US soldiers fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq, but he dramatically expanded the air wars and the use of special operations forces around the globe. In 2016, US special operators could be found in 70% of the world’s nations, 138 countries – a staggering jump of 130% since the days of the Bush administration.
Looking back at President Obama’s legacy, the Council on Foreign Relation’s Micah Zenko added up the defense department’s data on airstrikes and made a startling revelation: in 2016 alone, the Obama administration dropped at least 26,171 bombs. This means that every day last year, the US military blasted combatants or civilians overseas with 72 bombs; that’s three bombs every hour, 24 hours a day.
While most of these air attacks were in Syria and Iraq, US bombs also rained down on people in Afghanistan, Libya, Yemen, Somalia and Pakistan. That’s seven majority-Muslim countries.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jan/09/america-dropped-26171-bombs-2016-obama-legacy
@David Jordan: America dropped 26,171 bombs in 2016. What a bloody end to Obama’s reign.
President Obama did reduce the number of US soldiers fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq, but he dramatically expanded the air wars and the use of special operations forces around the globe. In 2016, US special operators could be found in 70% of the world’s nations, 138 countries – a staggering jump of 130% since the days of the Bush administration.
Looking back at President Obama’s legacy, the Council on Foreign Relation’s Micah Zenko added up the defense department’s data on airstrikes and made a startling revelation: in 2016 alone, the Obama administration dropped at least 26,171 bombs. This means that every day last year, the US military blasted combatants or civilians overseas with 72 bombs; that’s three bombs every hour, 24 hours a day.
While most of these air attacks were in Syria and Iraq, US bombs also rained down on people in Afghanistan, Libya, Yemen, Somalia and Pakistan. That’s seven majority-Muslim countries.
Given that drones account for only a small portion of the munitions dropped in the past eight years, the numbers of civilians killed by Obama’s bombs could be in the thousands. But we can’t know for sure as the administration, and the mainstream media, has been virtually silent about the civilian toll of the administration’s failed interventions.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jan/09/america-dropped-26171-bombs-2016-obama-legacy
4 years of peace under Trump
@Eoin Ó Cuinneagáin: That administration was much less transparent. Both presidents aren’t angels.
@Eoin Ó Cuinneagáin:
You’re obviously conveniently forgetting the 10,000 kilo “mother of all bombs” trump dropped in Afghanistan and couldn’t wait to brag to the world about it
@Eoin Ó Cuinneagáin: did you decide to ignore all the bombs The Donald dropped?
@Eoin Ó Cuinneagáin: Several of Iraqs and Syrias cities were bombed to dust under Trump, it took over a year to extract all the bodies from the rubble. Far more fighetrs and civilians were killed under Trump that Obama as the fighting moved from rural areas to holdout cites, as the US led anti ISIS coalition sifted from using drones out in rural areas to bombing cities using warplanes from Deago García, Turkey and aircraft carriers in the Gulf. I think people forget how violent the fighting was in the last couple of years of the ISIS Caliphate as it was just ISIS.
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/12/21/americas-war-on-syrian-civilians
https://youtu.be/1A6qJhSsuWc and 3pXsUP6Xeiw
@David Jordan: “For four months in 2017, an American-led coalition in Syria dropped some ten thousand bombs on Raqqa, the densely populated capital of the Islamic State. Nearly eighty per cent of the city, which has a population of three hundred thousand, was destroyed.”
“Nobody knows how many thousands of residents died, or how many are now homeless or confined to a wheelchair. What is certain is that the decimation of Raqqa is unlike anything seen in an American conflict since the Second World War.”
@Eoin Ó Cuinneagáin: He preferred to keep it domestic.
@Eoin Ó Cuinneagáin: Dont forget the Don signed off on a 350 billion dollar arms supply deal with the bastion of democracy, Saudi Arabia. They can then continue the dirty work on behalf of the US.
@David Jordan: You mean the capital city of Islamic State that both the US, Kurds, and local Iraqi Army tried to dislodge? Weren’t the civilian population warned to get out of Raqqa?
@Jamo: So just imagine back in the day, say Newry had lots of IRA people there. British army go in and level the city killing thousands. Mostly civilians, but hey no problem, we got a few IRA as well. It was the civilians own fault, they should have left.
@Fr. Fintan Stack: Are you seriously comparing a place where 90% of its citizens support IS versus Newry who id say 5% of the population supported the IRA? Are you saying Fintan that IS should have been left alone in Raqqa, the beheading, stoning, burning alive of children, torture of any non believers etc etc allowed to continue?
@Jamo: Supporting ISIS is one thing (even if under false support because of fear). Actively carrying out beheading is another. Majority of Palestinians support Hamas, deemed a terrorist organisation. Should their civilians receive the same faith? And I’d like to see where you got your 5% from. Support for IRA in South Armagh in the 70′s & 80′s was a lot higher than 5%, i.e Crossmaglen, etc. Not easy to flush out the likes of ISIS, but killing the very people you claim you are protecting??? There was no one left for ISIS to stone or behead.
@Fr. Fintan Stack: Newry is in Down Fintan not South Armagh.
@Frank Carty: America dropped 26,171 bombs in 2016. What a bloody end to Obama’s reign.
President Obama did reduce the number of US soldiers fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq, but he dramatically expanded the air wars and the use of special operations forces around the globe. In 2016, US special operators could be found in 70% of the world’s nations, 138 countries – a staggering jump of 130% since the days of the Bush administration.
Looking back at President Obama’s legacy, the Council on Foreign Relation’s Micah Zenko added up the defense department’s data on airstrikes and made a startling revelation: in 2016 alone, the Obama administration dropped at least 26,171 bombs. This means that every day last year, the US military blasted combatants or civilians overseas with 72 bombs; that’s three bombs every hour, 24 hours a day.
While most of these air attacks were in Syria and Iraq, US bombs also rained down on people in Afghanistan, Libya, Yemen, Somalia and Pakistan. That’s seven majority-Muslim countries.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jan/09/america-dropped-26171-bombs-2016-obama-legacy
Trump 2024 ❤❤✌
@Eoin Ó Cuinneagáin: “For four months in 2017, an American-led coalition in Syria dropped some ten thousand bombs on Raqqa, the densely populated capital of the Islamic State. Nearly eighty per cent of the city, which has a population of three hundred thousand, was destroyed.”
“Nobody knows how many thousands of residents died, or how many are now homeless or confined to a wheelchair. What is certain is that the decimation of Raqqa is unlike anything seen in an American conflict since the Second World War.”
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/12/21/americas-war-on-syrian-civilians
@David Jordan: and ISIS are no more … job done as promised
@Eoin Ó Cuinneagáin: ISIS are still there, job not done.
@NotMyIreland: your mixing them up with SISI
@Eoin Ó Cuinneagáin: Why don’t you move there then.
@Paul Mcnevin: good point …. I’ll certainly get the vaccine quicker
@David Jordan: America dropped 26,171 bombs in 2016. What a bloody end to Obama’s reign.
President Obama did reduce the number of US soldiers fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq, but he dramatically expanded the air wars and the use of special operations forces around the globe. In 2016, US special operators could be found in 70% of the world’s nations, 138 countries – a staggering jump of 130% since the days of the Bush administration.
Looking back at President Obama’s legacy, the Council on Foreign Relation’s Micah Zenko added up the defense department’s data on airstrikes and made a startling revelation: in 2016 alone, the Obama administration dropped at least 26,171 bombs. This means that every day last year, the US military blasted combatants or civilians overseas with 72 bombs; that’s three bombs every hour, 24 hours a day.
While most of these air attacks were in Syria and Iraq, US bombs also rained down on people in Afghanistan, Libya, Yemen, Somalia and Pakistan. That’s seven majority-Muslim countries.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jan/09/america-dropped-26171-bombs-2016-obama-legacy
@Eoin Ó Cuinneagáin: They wouldn’t have you in fairness.
But but but Trump it was Trump it had to be Trump!! Good old Joe back to bombings like it was under Barry O’ Bama. Was it actual militants this time or was it women and children again?
@Jamo: Trump dropped more bombs in 4 years than Obama did in 8. Trump also ordered that the military stopped reporting civilian casualties.
@Rebecca BarrettNp: No he didn’t, can I see proof of this or is it another CNN made up story?
@Jamo: I can’t post links, just Google Obama vs. Trump drone strikes, plenty of sources and well-documented since 2019, it’s crazy to me that you were unaware of this.
@Rebecca BarrettNp: Thats not true.
America dropped 26,171 bombs in 2016. What a bloody end to Obama’s reign.
President Obama did reduce the number of US soldiers fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq, but he dramatically expanded the air wars and the use of special operations forces around the globe. In 2016, US special operators could be found in 70% of the world’s nations, 138 countries – a staggering jump of 130% since the days of the Bush administration.
Looking back at President Obama’s legacy, the Council on Foreign Relation’s Micah Zenko added up the defense department’s data on airstrikes and made a startling revelation: in 2016 alone, the Obama administration dropped at least 26,171 bombs. This means that every day last year, the US military blasted combatants or civilians overseas with 72 bombs; that’s three bombs every hour, 24 hours a day.
While most of these air attacks were in Syria and Iraq, US bombs also rained down on people in Afghanistan, Libya, Yemen, Somalia and Pakistan. That’s seven majority-Muslim countries.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jan/09/america-dropped-26171-bombs-2016-obama-legacy
@On the right side: It is true, and the article you are quoting is from 2017, Trump was President up until last month.
Ffs,didn’t take long
Any sign of those pesky WMD’s?
Really surprised that a President, whose Secretary of Defence was on the Board of Directors of Raytheon, decided to do this.
The Biden Bomber
More of the same, bombing allegedly terrorist camps or villages of men ,women& children.
Every supposedly targeted strike inevitably kills everyone in the vicinity, & not always the actual targets.
This is a Russia backed Syrian war, so what is the US messing in it?
Dont overlook that Trump betrayed the Kurds in his term & disgraced US involvement there.
If they want to restore influence & honour internationally, just help the Kurds to help themselves.
And leave it at that.
@William Kelly: it was a response to an attack on American contractors one of whom was killed & several injured.
@William Kelly: The US bombed the exact same site, an Iranian military base out in the desert just inside Syria’s border with Iraq in March 2020, for the exact same reasons, Iranian proxies fired rockets on the Baghdad Greenzone.
This is a continuation of the conflict with Iran that was started by Trump after he escalated tensions with Iran. He chose a harder line against Iran, encouraged by John Bolton and other War Hawks. He scraped the Iran nuclear deal and resumed the US official policy…suspended under Obama…that aspires to the overthrow of Iran government.
This led to increased tension and conflict with Iran and its proxies, a culminating in rocket and drone attacks on oil facilities and the Baghdad Greenzone by Iran’s proxies in Iraq, US assassination of General Qasem Soleimani in Jan 2020 and the attack on the Al +-Bukamal base in March 2020. Seems so long ago now.
“Warplanes target area near Syrian town of Al-Bukamal & Iraq’s Anbar province after rocket attack on Iraq base – reports” – https://www.rt.com/news/482883-airstrike-iraq-base-syria/
@Mjhint: What was the ‘contractor’ doing there?
@Bramley Hawthorne: contractors are usually truck divers or work in mine / bomb disposal. Here’s a list of 300 US contractors that were killed in Iraq, many were truck drivers.
https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5431088
The person in the Oval Office makes no difference. Eisenhower warned about this in his farewell address.
War mongers back in control. Arms industry badly needs a war.
Getting a bit tired of all the MAGA-bots on here.
@Robert: Not saying Biden’s an angel either.
Again America’s army God bless Trump Nobel price for peace well deserved
Yeah lads, be proud he is Irish.
After 4 years of the peace under the President Trump now the Democrats Biden, Harris controlled war machine has been fired up and back in action.
have your say