Speech by An Taoiseach Simon Harris T.D., Fine Gael Think-in 2024

Colleagues, New candidates, Friends,

Welcome to the Tullamore Court hotel.

I am delighted we are here together for this important gathering ahead of the next political season and parliamentary term.

It may feel like longer… but it has been just five months since I became Taoiseach and Party Leader.

When I stood before you in Athlone, I promised to reconnect and to re-energise this party.

And I can tell you, I have been across the country and this party is alive and kicking, and ready for battle at the next general election, when it comes.

I said it was a moment of reset for the Fine Gael party, a moment to reconnect with what matters to people and re-energise our delivery for them.

I have been to every corner of the country in the last five months and met hundreds of thousands of people.

I have listened to what matters to them most.

How we can help them with the cost of living.

How we can help them own their home.

How can we help them when they fall on hard times?

What more can we do to help people with additional needs?

How will we keep the local café and restaurant going.

These are the issues that drive me and you the Fine Gael team and that is what we will prioritise in the months ahead.

Businesses:

When I appointed Minister Peter Burke as Minister for Enterprise, I asked him to draw up a plan to help our small and medium businesses – the lifeblood of our economy.

With 15 simple actions, he gave a much-needed lifeline to thousands of businesses across the country.

Yesterday, Peter secured approval to ensure every single decision made by Government is run through a test for the impact it is having on small and medium businesses.

Because nobody is more aware of the challenges businesses across the country are facing than Peter, Emer Higgins and Fine Gael.

This is a party that has always prioritised small and medium businesses, family run, family owned, community-built businesses.

They are the backbone of our economy. That is why Fine Gael will ensure we have a pro-business Budget.

We will reflect on the pace and the scale of the interventions businesses are facing over the coming months.

And ensure we can provide certainty to them in the Budget in three weeks’ time.

Because every business is vital to our economy. But more importantly, every job is vital to our wellbeing, to our families, to our communities.

Fine Gael is the party of enterprise and reward. Together with colleagues in Government, we will deliver a pro-enterprise Budget.

Housing

Colleagues, the greatest challenge we face as a country, economy and society is housing.

It is my number one priority.

This year we are on course to surpass our targets and deliver 40,000 homes.

Over 200 homes are being commenced every day this year.

500 individuals or couples are buying their first home every week – the highest in 16 years.

We are building the most social homes since the 1970s – over 8,000 last year.

4,800 people have been approved under the First Home Scheme, bridging the gap between a couple’s deposit and mortgage, and the price of their new home.

Now as we enter the new Dáil term, it’s time to raise the scale of ambition and bring renewed energy to delivery.

Shortly, we will publish new housing estimates and set each local authority specific targets to deliver.

Fine Gael has already committed to building at least 250,000 homes between now and 2030.

For the first time ever, we have ensured Housing for All will include student accommodation.

Working with Patrick O’Donovan, we will ensure student accommodation is funded by the State.

We have invested €100 million but again we need to increase our ambition to deliver student housing across the country. It is the least our young people deserve.

Fine Gael will commit to retaining the vital supports people need to buy their own home.

We will take every measure possible to ensure more homes are available for private purchase including any measure necessary on bulk purchasing.

We will use the resources the State has garnered through the sale of bank shares to help build more homes and build the infrastructure we need.

But I want everyone in this room and beyond to know Fine Gael’s number one priority is housing.

No idea is too big, or too small. We will be relentless in our approach.

We will leave no stone unturned in the years ahead to realise the delivery of all the housing we need for a modern, inclusive Ireland.

Infrastructure

As we keep our focus on housing, it is equally important we do not lose sight of the need for childcare facilities, schools, roads, healthcare facilities.

Under Paschal Donohoe, we will have increased our investment in capital by 58% in the lifetime of this Government. Our investment in housing has doubled over the last five years.

Across this country, we can see the impact investment in infrastructure is having.

Here in Offaly, we are building a new 1,000 pupil secondary school in Edenderry.

We have spent €15 million on roads in this county this year alone.

But if we are being honest, we need to do things quicker and better. That is why I have proposed a Department of Infrastructure to help drive the change we need.

The aim of the new Department is to speed up delivery of key infrastructural elements required by the State to help meet the needs of a growing and ageing population and to meet our climate demands.

Childcare

That will be a key Fine Gael election manifesto commitment.

Today, I want to talk to you about another one.

I have said I want to make Ireland the best country in Europe to be a child.

I am proud of what we have achieved in reducing the cost of childcare but now I want us to ask ourselves how we can be more ambitious.

I want to give the nation’s children the best start in life and their parents the most choice when it comes to caring for them.

The evidence is clear: Investing heavily in high quality early childcare and early childhood education reaps great rewards in later life.

It also reduces educational inequalities, particularly for those who may be experiencing disadvantage, and it enables women to fulfil their ambitions.

I know the pressures of juggling work and responsibilities; the constant balancing of work and caring responsibilities, and we need to give parents options to choose what is right for them.

I want us to develop a childcare system that works for every parent.

I don’t believe this vision will ever be achieved if we simply leave it to the market, frankly the stakes are far too high, and parents want certainty.

So now I want Fine Gael to make that shift and do what is in the best interests of children and their families, by moving to a new stage in the development of childcare in this country.

We need to move to an affordable, high quality, public early learning and childcare model.

This month, parents across the country will have received a much-needed cut in their childcare costs.

It has been a significant help to families.

But we need to continually raise the scale of our ambition.

I want this to be one of the key commitments Fine Gael is working on ahead of the next election.

I would love to hear from you today on this.

Migration

It would be wrong not to mention migration. While we grapple with increased numbers coming into the country, building a new system in real time, there are no easy answers, but I continue to believe our approach must be threefold:

• Firm rules, fairly and efficiently enforced
• A compassionate approach delivered with common sense
• Consistent, open and honest communications with the public

I have listened and heard from you all. And I know the challenges we are facing the length and breadth of the country.

The Irish people know the value of migration. They know the value migration brings to our economy, to our health services, to our society.

They also want to know the Government is listening to their concerns.

With these things in mind, we will in the coming weeks:

• Consider further changes to the supports available to those seeking asylum in this country
• Establish a new Accommodation Project Management Group focused on progressing all aspects of the development and opening of a small number of larger sites.
• The first test of this will be the opening of tented accommodation at Thornton Hall later this month.
• But. crucially, we will enhance resources for the Community Engagement Team and will commence a communications campaign from the end September.

We understand the very legitimate concerns people have and we have to work with communities to address the very basic questions they have.

We must not allow those who want to work with us to fall for the misinformation and disinformation.

We have a responsibility to address their issues.

But we will never, ever stand by and allow the men and women of An Garda Siochána be attacked for doing their job.

Let us today send a clear message that this party and Minister Helen McEntee is on the side of An Garda Siocaana.

We stand with the people who put on the uniform every single day.

Fine Gael will be the party which puts body cameras on every single member on the beat.

We will be the party who significantly increases the stipend our trainee gardai get paid.

We will be the party who opens more prison spaces, hires more judges and reforms our sentencing laws to send a message that crime never pays.

Cost of Living

Three weeks from now, the Budget will be announced and all the horse trading will be done.

None of the achievements or ambitions I have mentioned could be possible without Minister Paschal Donohoe and his stewardship of our economy.

Now, working with Paschal, we are approaching this Government’s last Budget before the next General Election.

We know the cost-of-living is still an issue for families all over the country.

That is why Fine Gael is working to put more money back in their pockets.

We want to reduce costs and reduce tax to make work pay so that households can keep more of their hard-earned money.

We can do this because Fine Gael has built a strong economy.

We want to ensure that economic success delivers tangible benefits in people’s lives.

In this Budget, Fine Gael will help people struggling in the here and now, while ensuring we protect the economy and plan for the future.

In Budget 2025, priorities will be:

• Building more homes and delivering more home ownership;
• Cutting the cost of raising a family through reduced taxes and helping with cost of childcare, school and college;
• Helping working families with the bills including energy, transport and rent;
• Ensuring those who need the most help get it – our older people and our most vulnerable;
• Investing in disability services to help children get access to assessment of needs, therapies and school places;
• A range of supports to help businesses;
• Support for farmers to plan for the future;
• Building the infrastructure the country needs. That means more schools, more hospitals, more roads;
• Investing in our gardai and ensuring our migration system is more efficient.

Colleagues, our deputy leader, our Minister for Social Protection Heather Humphreys will roll out hot school meals to every school in the country by 2025 making sure no child goes hungry.

It will be Heather fighting for every penny she can get to help working families with the cost they face.

It will be Heather who will ensure every single worker in this country gets access to a pension.

This Budget will be no different. Carers. People with disabilities. Children. Parents. That is our shared priority.

Political

Shortly, we will complete our party selection conventions on schedule, and we will move quickly to finalise tickets.

Fine Gael will run a team of experience and new energy.

The party has already chosen 47 candidates in 30 constituencies.

Sixteen candidates are women. This places Fine Gael at 34% of the gender quota with 13 constituencies to go.

Six of our candidates have never ran for public office before; 23 are running for the Dáil for the first-time.

Now, it’s over to all of us – me, as Party Leader, our Ministers, our Parliamentary Party members and all of the new candidates here today to work as a team. To fight for every vote. To leave nothing behind.

Five months after I stood before you and committed to re-energising the party and reconnecting.

Today, I stand in front of you and ask you for your help in getting the Fine Gael message across.

Because the next election will be a choice:

Between pragmatism or populism.

A choice between hope or hopelessness.

A choice between unity in times of trouble or division in moments of crisis.

Everyone in this hotel will ask me when the general election will be.

But when I leave this hotel today, and canvass with John, not one person will repeat the same question.

They will ask me what we are doing to help them.

That is what I want us to focus on.

Fine Gael is a party that always puts people before politics, country before party.

Today, I challenge us all to do just that again.

Let’s work day and night to deliver for the people, our neighbours, our friends, our communities and our country.