{"id":13414,"date":"2025-04-12T09:47:10","date_gmt":"2025-04-12T09:47:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/13414\/"},"modified":"2025-04-12T09:47:10","modified_gmt":"2025-04-12T09:47:10","slug":"taoiseach-would-put-irish-boots-on-the-ground-in-ukraine-peacekeeping-force-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/13414\/","title":{"rendered":"Taoiseach would put Irish boots on the ground in Ukraine peacekeeping force \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Taoiseach Miche\u00e1l Martin<\/a> has said the Government would send Irish troops to Ukraine to be part of a peacekeeping force if there is a ceasefire and a peace deal that ends the war.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re willing to be part of a ceasefire if there\u2019s monitoring or a peacekeeping mission,\u201d Mr Martin told The Irish Times Inside Politics podcast. \u201cIf a ceasefire is arrived at . . . we\u2019ve made it very clear we\u2019re willing to do that or at least to contribute to that.\u201d <\/p>\n

He said Ireland would not be willing to be part of a \u201cdeterrent force\u201d as it would not be \u201cin keeping with our policy of military neutrality or non-alignment\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s arguable that it wouldn\u2019t be, but we don\u2019t want to be part of that,\u201d he said. \u201cThat\u2019s not what we\u2019re about. We don\u2019t have the military capability for scenarios like that, but we are experienced at peacekeeping, and we are experienced in peace monitoring. We\u2019ve done it, we\u2019ve done it all over the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

A meeting of countries prepared to be involved in the so-called \u201ccoalition of the willing\u201d to assist Ukraine took place at Nato headquarters in Brussels this week, at which Ireland was represented.<\/p>\n

On housing Mr Martin conceded that it would be difficult for the Government to reach the target of 300,000 new homes by the time of the next general election. But he said that the Government was working on a number of fronts to quicken the pace of housing delivery and to remove the barriers to increasing the number of new units.<\/p>\n

He said that the private sector needed to step up, and said that a decision on reform of the rent pressure zone rules would be taken in the coming months, but he did not give any indication that tax incentives \u2013 an idea floated in recent months \u2013 were planned.<\/p>\n

He was critical of some local authorities for failing to build enough \u2013 or any \u2013 social houses.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think there was a regrettable disconnection between many local authorities and house-building in previous decades,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s been difficult to crank up some of that. Some are better than others. I mean, I heard a figure about Dublin City Council and I stand to be corrected on it . . . but they\u2019re not building social housing in this city to any appreciable degree. I\u2019d love to be contradicted.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said the Minister for Housing would publish \u201ca league table of local authorities to say, look, here they are, here are the ones that are not doing it\u201d.<\/p>\n

He added that changes in housing policy need to be made \u201cimmediately\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s what we have to do. This couple of months have to be key in that regard, not just for the electoral cycle, but there has to be a trajectory of activity that goes out beyond the next decade.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr Martin defended the agreement to support the Government made with Independent TD Michael Lowry<\/a>, the focus of much criticism from the Opposition in recent weeks. But he insisted there were no \u201cdeals\u201d for constituency favours with Independent TDs \u2013 as one of the Independents, Barry Heneghan, had suggested this week.<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, I mean, I\u2019m not responsible for what people call things. But I mean, I\u2019m very clear there is no deal, specific deal in relation to any individual Independent TD. We studiously avoided any sort of agreement or any document in respect of any constituency.\u201d<\/p>\n

Asked what Independent TDs get from the arrangement with Fine Gael and Fianna F\u00e1il, Mr Martin said: \u201cWell, first of all, they get stable government for five years. Someone has to put a government together.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Taoiseach Miche\u00e1l Martin has said the Government would send Irish troops to Ukraine to be part of a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":13415,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7654],"tags":[9040,9042,2000,299,6334,9039,9037,9038,681,657,9041],"class_list":{"0":"post-13414","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ukraine","8":"tag-barry-heneghan","9":"tag-dublin-city-council","10":"tag-eu","11":"tag-europe","12":"tag-housing-crisis","13":"tag-housing-demand","14":"tag-inside-politics","15":"tag-michael-lowry","16":"tag-micheal-martin","17":"tag-ukraine","18":"tag-ukraine-crisis"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114324363238893218","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13414","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13414"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13414\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13415"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13414"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13414"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13414"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}