Speech by Taoiseach Micheál Martin at the Opening of the Fianna Fáil Ard Fheis 2026

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A Cháirde,

A bhaill Fhianna Fáil agus a dhaoine uaisle go léir,

Is pribhléid agus onóir mhór domsa mar Uachtarán an Pháirtí, Ceannaire Fhianna Fáil agus mar Thaoiseach a bheith anseo libh anocht chun tús a chur le deireadh seachtaine stairiúil agus thar a bheith tábhachtach i stair Fhianna Fáil.

Céad bliain ó shin ar an séu lá déag de mhí na Bealtaine bhailigh laochra agus tírghráthóirí le chéile a raibh fís agus fuinneamh acu páirtí nua a bhunú chun tír neamhspléach dhaonlathach a chur chun cinn ar mhaithe le gnáthmhuintir na hÉireann.

Is léir go bhfuil athruithe móra tagtha ar shaol na tíre ó bunaíodh an páirtí agus bhí Fianna Fáil lárnach i gur chun cinn na tíre seo agus tá claochlú tagtha ar an tír a bhuí le polasaithe ar bpáirtí.

Bhí baint ag Fianna Fáil le gach dul chun cinn tairbheach suntasach i réimse an oideachais, tugadh isteach saoroideachas meánscoile, cuireadh coláistí nua tríú leibhéal ar bun agus thosaíomar soláthar cúntóirí agus ranganna do scoláirí le riachtanais speisialta.

Tá cur chun cinn na Gaeilge agus an chultúir mar chroílár obair Fhianna Fáil

Bhí polasaithe Fhianna Fáil lárnach don gheilleagar, don fhorbairt tionsclaíochta agus chun pinsin agus caiteachas sóisialta a mhéadú agus a leathnú.

Is féidir linn go léir a bheith bródúil as an obair atá déanta ag na glúnta a chuaigh romhainn ar son mhuintir na tíre seo.

An deireadh seachtaine seo táimid ag comóradh bhunú an pháirtí agus ag féachaint ar aghaidh freisin chun leanúint orainn leis an obair ar son na tíre sa todhchaí.

Mar Cheananire an Pháirtí, ba mhaith liom fíorbhuíochas a ghabháil libhse, baill an pháirtí, as an obair dhian, dhílis, leanúnach atá ar siúl agaibh mar bhaill ghnóthacha an pháirtí ó cheann ceann na tíre seo. Is sibhse baill an pháirtí atá i dteagmháil leanúnach leis an bpobal agus sin an fáth go raibh an páirtí riamh chomh rathúil i measc an phobail.

Tuigeann Fianna Fail pobal na tíre seo, tacaíonn Fianna Fáil le pobal na tíre agus éistimid le pobal na tíre seo.

Cuimhnímid anocht ar bhaill an pháirtí a rinne gaisce ar son a gceantar agus ar son na tíre agus atá anois imithe uainn ar Shlí na Fírinne. Solas na bhFlaitheas orthu uilig.

Gabhaim buíochas ó chroí libh agus bainigí taitneamh as an deireadh seachtaine stairiúil speisialta seo agus táim ag tnúth le bheith ag bualadh libh agus le bheith ag caint libh.

Every Árd Fheis is special, but this year we mark a genuinely historic milestone.

The great generation who answered Eamon de Valera's call to found a new republican party started out with nothing except their ideals.

They had no money, no resources, no power and faced the assertive opposition of an entrenched government.

Yet the party which they built has achieved more than anyone could have expected.

Across the past century Fianna Fáil has been one of the most successful parties in the democratic world.

Today we are the largest party in local government. The largest party in the Oireachtas.

We lead the government. We have doubled our representation in the European Parliament. We hold important roles in the European Parliament and Commission - and we will shortly take up the Presidency of the Council of Ministers.

So, in spite of all of the huge barriers faced by our founders and the many predictions that we were about to disappear - Fianna Fáil remains a vital and active political force as it marks its centenary.

I think that there are two big reasons for this success.

The first is that, from our very first days, our thousands of members in every part of the country have been our driving force and have a sincere and deep respect for the party, its traditions and for their fellow members. This is something people outside the party always overlook.

This strength has got us through many tough times. Wherever I go in the country I get a great energy from our members,

I want to say again tonight how much that means to me and to all of us who have the honour of representing Fianna Fáil in elected office.

Thank you for your work, your support and your service.

The other core strength of Fianna Fáil has been that we focus on the politics of substance.

In fact, the single most important reason cited by our founders for this new departure was the need to develop a new agenda which would bring to the fore the long-term, substantive policies Ireland needed to move forward.

When people come to the ballot box, they tend to put aside the policy soundbites and targeted give-aways. What they focus on is who is offering a way forward for Ireland.

That's why it is important that we use this Árd Fheis as an opportunity to talk with each other about what we think are the big challenges facing Ireland in the years ahead and how we want to tackle them.

Let's have discussions which are as serious as the issues involved - and which show that we are not interested in the type of cynical, short-term politics which we can see every day from the opposition.

There is a growing divide in Irish politics between those who are angry and aggressive in everything, and those who seek dialogue and respect others.

We can see in many parts of the democratic world the damage which can be done to a country when the politics of anger and division take over.

When every issue is seen as a conspiracy, where the good faith of your opponents is never respected, when even the most complex issues are reduced to a soundbite - this is when you lose the ability to actually serve the people.

We refuse to join this constant escalation of political rhetoric - we see our first duty to deal seriously with serious issues.

Last year we held a special Árd Fheis to consider whether we should enter this coalition government.

The right of the members to decide on this was central to the reform of our rules which I introduced, and our members showed once again that they take this right seriously.

We had an open and comprehensive debate based on a full programme for government. The overwhelming vote in favour of taking up the responsibility of government couldn't have been clearer.

It's a programme for a full term and it's a positive programme of real substance. It balances the need for both urgent and longer-term action.

When it comes to Budget policy our fundamental approach is that we must be fair, we must improve vital services, and we must protect our future at a time of global disruption.

I believe that people understand that we have to be responsible in our Budgets. We can't leave ourselves in the situation where we cannot act if there is a major international downturn.

It's already the opposition's policy that we shouldn't be putting aside so much to pay for critical investments in the future - and every day they keep demanding that we abandon all restraint.

We have to strike a balance between being prudent and addressing urgent needs - and we're going to keep doing this.

And within this balance there is a lot that we can do.

We will continue to be true to the core values set out by de Valera and Lemass, that for Fianna Fáil, social and economic progress must go hand in hand. We reject the idea of setting different groups against each other.

I believe that what people want most is a sense of fairness - and they aren't looking to gain at the expense of others.

Since we returned to government, we have insisted that pensions and supports for those most in need must be a priority - and this will always be our position. It is also something which I believe all sectors of our society agree on.

We have put major funding behind helping families and businesses under pressure due to high prices - and especially high energy prices over recent years because of the war on Ukraine and the war in the Middle East.

In the context of framing the Budget we first of all have to see what the general economic situation is at this new moment of uncertainty.

What I think it is important to say, is that we very much understand that pressures are being felt in many parts of society and on many families. We have provided significant help and are doing so in a way which is sustainable.

I think people understand that this way is one which delivers far more - and does so in a way which provides permanent help.

More than ever before we have to all understand the need for as much energy independence as possible.

Long-term investment, which we have put in place and protected, is essential to this.

We need to move away from the damaging idea that you have to choose between the environment and the economy. In the field of energy above all others - our economy, our family budgets - will suffer without the accelerated action on renewable energy that we are determined to deliver.

Fianna Fáil believes in strong public services, and we've already seen major improvements in critical areas.

When we took on the responsibility for Health in the middle of a global pandemic and a general sense that progress was impossible, we knew we could make a difference and we did.

Through a steady programme of investment and reform, area after area saw new services created, capacity increased and successful treatments expanding. Women's health transformed from where it had been.

And our reforms will have a growing impact, ensuring that more patients are treated and the public gets value for money.

Improving mental health services is another objective which we insisted upon when setting out the agenda for government. The passage of the new Mental Health Bill is a significant milestone.

I know that the obvious need for better services can be frustrating for people, but by the time it completes its term, the sustained investment in developing and improving mental health supports will be a defining achievement of this government.

In government we haven't sought the easy tasks, we have actively sought to work on the biggest challenges facing our country.

The urgent need to provide housing which people can afford to buy or rent, is one we are working every day to address.

In the twelve months up to the end of this March, more than 38,000 new dwellings have been completed - an increase of 26% year on year.

And since 2020, when we returned to Government, 177,000 houses and 50,000 apartments have been built.

When I was elected as Taoiseach, I made it clear that Fianna Fáil would seek to step change the level and impact of government's work on disability.

We've established a focus at the heart of government for disability policy and have been rapidly moving forward with doing the work required to develop and implement radical change in disability services and supports.

We also know that one of the most basic needs of a society is to feel safe. In many parts of the country, and in particular in big cities and towns, anti-social behaviour can have deep impact on the community.

That is why we are moving forward with our plans to increase the number of Gardai available to police in our communities and to increase Garda visibility on the ground.

Since 2020, Garda funding has increased by more than €500m, and the number of Gardaí in communities will reach 15,000, more than ever before, in the very near future. This investment and growth will continue in the years ahead.

We will also continue our programme of legislation to make sure that the law keeps pace with the reality of crime today.

It's issues like this, and schools, local roads, training and other issues which impact on us every day, that we want to focus on in our work. But we can't ignore just how important international discussions and events are to basically everything which happens here.

Initial Fianna Fáil governments secured recognition around the world because of many things, but perhaps most important was how under Eamon de Valera's leadership, they supported the idea of the rule of law in international affairs.

No other country in the world responded to rising extremism like ours did when we adopted, in a free referendum, a constitution which enshrined the principle of international law and cooperation.

Over the last year we have had to negotiate a deeply uncertain international situation.

Most of the key foundations for peace and prosperity internationally have been under pressure. Mounting trade disputes, conflicts affecting many millions of people and attacks on basic democratic values are increasingly a reality.

As I said in Washington DC earlier this year, we believe that cooperation between countries, as well as strong, rules-based organisations are to the benefit of everyone.

This cooperation has been at the heart of peace between many historic enemies and has driven the greatest fall in extreme poverty seen in world history.

At every opportunity that we have we will keep working with others to try to restore and renew respect for international cooperation.

Fianna Fáil's commitment to the United Nations system is unmatched. Through our leaders and ministers, we took the lead in critical areas like preventing the proliferation of nuclear weapons and promoting the peaceful resolution of conflicts.

Across all of its activities on peace, education, public health, agriculture, the environment and the full range of humanitarian activities which its agencies address, our commitment to the UN is clear and consistent.

We work with UN agencies which literally save thousands of lives every day.

Their work also helps us every day, providing critical information to protect our public and help set the standards our businesses and agencies work to.

So, we will continue to stand with those who want to defend and strengthen the United Nations.

It is an uncomfortable truth that we have to be able to defend ourselves against increasingly serious threats to the vital connections we have with the wider world.

We have to significantly increase our level of capability to protect our under-sea gas, sub- sea cables, electricity and cyber connections.

These are modern day threats the likes of which we could hardly have imagined even a few years ago - but they are a reality and we must and will deal with them.

And we will also stand with others in leading the defence of the European Union against its relentless opponents.

We can see in Britain the damage which can be done by corrosive Euroscepticism. We are not immune from it in this country.

On both the right and the left we can see groups who consistently attack the European Union and want Ireland to try to weaken it. They have to be confronted.

We will never step back from our belief in Europe as the great enabler of our sovereignty and our prosperity.

We will soon assume the European Presidency, and we have our strongest presence in the Parliament and Commission for many years. We will be, as we have been for over sixty years, an active and positive voice for a strong and effective Europe.

The Shared Island Initiative, which I established when I was first elected Taoiseach, and whose funding we doubled to €2 Billion when I returned to the role, is the most consequential north-south initiative ever undertaken by an Irish Government.

It is not about slogans or soundbites, nor reheating well-worn and comfortable rhetoric.

It is about the much harder, perhaps more uncomfortable, and certainly more important work of building the physical, societal, educational, and person-to-person connections that we need if we are ever to achieve the goal of bringing people together and achieving agreement on how we are going to share our island.

Just last week, I was in Belfast with Darragh O' Brien and northern colleagues to sign a €700m contract for replacement of the Enterprise fleet - a service that has already undergone a 40% increase in traffic thanks to a Shared Island investment in increased frequency.

Next year, we will open the Narrow Water Bridge - a world class piece of infrastructure physically linking north and south, symbolising the deeper connection we aspire to and paid for entirely by the Shared Island Initiative.

Every day, researchers and scientists from institutions North and South are working together, many for the first time, developing the first meaningful picture of the reality of all-island life since partition, and helping solve persistent problems to the benefit of all.

And we are just getting started.

I want to thank you, our members for your support.

And I also want to acknowledge our ministers, Deputies and Senators for the work they are doing every day to implement policies which are true to our party's best values and traditions.

When engaging with people in the community, I am constantly struck by their desire to talk about the substance of issues. They want us to explain what we stand for and what are our priorities.

That's our focus this weekend. A positive agenda which reflects on the biggest challenges facing our country and the practical steps we are taking to overcome these challenges.

Protecting jobs, helping people with the high cost of living, delivering affordable housing, tackling crime in the community, supporting rural communities, investing in education -

these and more are the issues we will be discussing during a range of sessions throughout the Árd Fheis.

Through the last century our country has achieved many remarkable things. We still have many important challenges, but we can be proud of the central role which our Party has played in the achievement of peace and progress on our island.

Renewing Fianna Fáil's great tradition of service, that is our work.

ENDS