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LAST UPDATE | 13 Mar
TAOISEACH MICHEÁL MARTIN has said that the opposition’s criticism to his comment on housing in the White House was “over the top”.
Martin is facing sharp criticism from opposition parties for his “insulting” comments about the housing crisis during his Oval Office meeting with Donald Trump yesterday.
The highly anticipated occasion had Irish political commentators on tenterhooks, waiting to see if Micheál Martin would fall victim to a public dressing down akin to the now-infamous one experienced recently by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
Martin received generally positive reviews of his performance in the White House meeting, which passed off largely without incident. The Taoiseach, for the most part, managed to bat away awkward questions about Rosie O’Donnell’s recent move to Ireland.
The issue of Ireland’s housing crisis was raised during the encounter at one point, with Trump asked what advice he could offer Martin on the issue.
Trump replied: “Do you know why they have a housing crisis? Because they’re doing so well. The can’t produce houses fast enough. That’s a good problem, not a bad one. Everybody should have that problem.”
In response, Martin said: “That’s a pretty good answer, Mr President.”
However, the jovial nature of the Taoiseach’s handling of the topic has not drawn chuckles from opposition parties.
“I think the government themselves set the bar so low in terms of their briefings in advance that, unless the Taoiseach had left the White House completely mauled, it would have been presented as a success,” Sinn Féin’s Eoin Ó Broin said.
The Dublin Mid-West TD said the Taoiseach’s comment was offensive to those suffering as a result of a lack of housing.
“Both the comments and the manner in which the issue was effectively treated as a joke is deeply insulting to those huge numbers of people who are experiencing real housing distress every day.”
“I’m working with people who are in emergency accommodation at risk of homelessness, forced to live at home in their parents’ box bedroom, paying rip-off rents or considering emigrating.
“I don’t think any of those people think that either the housing crisis is a good problem to have or is a matter to be laughing about.”
The Taoiseach’s blasé approach to fielding the housing question in the company of President Trump and the accompanying press pack was also lambasted by Social Democrats Housing Spokesperson Rory Hearne.
“It was really inappropriate and insensitive how Micheál Martin responded,” Hearne said.
Trump’s response doesn’t hold water, said Hearne.
“We were in a housing crisis in 2014 and when the economy wasn’t growing like it is, we had the emergence of the homelessness crisis. Rents have been rising since then, house prices as well.”
Labour Party Housing Spokesperson Conor Sheehan believes the Taoiseach’s joke exposed his “callous indifference” to the housing crisis back home.
“The fact that when Trump made that comment that he felt it was appropriate, or that his natural instinct was to laugh. I mean, it’s not a laughing matter.”
The Taoiseach spoke to reporters in Washington on Thursday afternoon where he responded to Deputy Ó Broin’s comments, characterising them as “over the top” before launching a staunch defence of his response to the housing question in the Oval Office.
“I equally said in the press conference very emphatically, when I was asked ‘what was the number one issue’, [...] and 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.
“So I think there’s classic opposition to do that and I think that was an over-the-top reaction for Eoin Ó Broin.”
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