My understanding is that the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine has determined to grant an aquaculture licence to Woodstown Bay Shellfish Limited and that the licensing process involves consultation with a wide range of scientific and technical advisers as well as various statutory consultees. I am informed that the legislation also provides for a period of public consultation, which for this application w…
TDs / Micheál Martin
Micheál Martin
Taoiseach
Portrait: © Houses of the Oireachtas (Oireachtas (Open Data) PSI Licence) · source file
0
questions asked
Members of the Government answer questions rather than ask them
688,766
words spoken in the chamber
686,628 as a minister, 2,138 as a TD
197
votes recorded
Each Yes, No or Abstained in a recorded vote
From the Dáil chamber only: committee meetings are not in this archive.
Members of the Government answer parliamentary questions rather than ask them, so this page lists none of theirs.
Month by month
Low months are usually recesses, when the Dáil does not sit. The archive runs to 22 October 2026.
Contributions to debates 6,546 in all
Dec 2024Oct 2026
Show as a table
| Month | Contributions |
|---|---|
| December 2024 | 11 |
| January 2025 | 6 |
| February 2025 | 438 |
| March 2025 | 518 |
| April 2025 | 317 |
| May 2025 | 426 |
| June 2025 | 424 |
| July 2025 | 344 |
| August 2025 | 0 |
| September 2025 | 146 |
| October 2025 | 375 |
| November 2025 | 291 |
| December 2025 | 281 |
| January 2026 | 326 |
| February 2026 | 529 |
| March 2026 | 229 |
| April 2026 | 385 |
| May 2026 | 474 |
| June 2026 | 425 |
| July 2026 | 181 |
| August 2026 | 0 |
| September 2026 | 198 |
| October 2026 | 222 |
Debates they spoke in most
Plus 6,426 contributions in the regular slots, such as Leaders' Questions and Priority Questions. Speech from the chair is not counted.
Party, constituency and offices
- constituency Cork South-Central 29 November 2024 to now
- party Fianna Fáil 29 November 2024 to now
- office Taoiseach 23 January 2025 to now
There is a process here. I do not interfere in every single process. I do not have executive authority to do that. I think the Deputy knows that.
I thank the Deputy for raising the issue, which is obviously of huge concern to those in County Louth, in Carlingford and Dundalk. The additional investment in Irish Water, or Uisce Éireann, is a key priority for the next national development plan for clean water but also for housing supply. We will be ring-fencing quite substantial capital allocations for housing supply but also, as is clearly needed judging by the …
There are challenges. Nonetheless, earlier this year, the new Government allocated up to €700 million additionally over the Estimate for a whole variety of schemes to give them the green light. It allocated about €450 million for new projects and then approximately €300 for the tenant in situ scheme and for further acquisitions of housing and so on by local authorities. Other schemes are coming through all of the tim…
First, the Department makes its assessment in respect of new schools in terms of demographics, existing schools in the area that may be absorbing a lot at second level, and future trends. I am not in a position right here to question the work the Department has done on this. I will raise it with the Minister and indicate that the Deputy has raised this issue in Greystones on the Order of Business. I will particularly…
I accept fully the frustrations as articulated by the Deputy in respect of this issue. As far back as September 2024, the Department of Transport sanctioned an additional 70 permanent positions for driver testers and this increases the total permanent posts sanctioned for testers to 200, which is a doubling of permanent posts since June 2022. A recruitment process is under way, with the first tranche of new testers n…
I take this issue very seriously. I have met with Traveller organisations and agree that it is a very serious situation. I will ask the Minister of State with responsibility for mental health to respond.
I accept the Deputy's point and a lot of progress has been made over the last number of years in respect of caretakers and school secretaries in terms of salaries and so forth. We are committed to ensuring that grant-funded school caretakers will be afforded the opportunity to avail of an agreement similar to that offered to grant-funded school secretaries. There is more work to be done on both fronts but we will wor…
There is a commitment in the programme for Government to draw up a new action plan on insurance. We did a lot of good work in the previous government in respect of insurance. Insurance companies have to come to the table as well and respond to the reforms that have occurred, which industry and others sought, in terms of awards and all of that. More crucially, in terms of flood areas, there are issues without question…
I will have to look into the background. An Bord Pleanála is saying that the site is designated for a school. The docklands will have to have a fairly extensive campus for a primary, further, post primary and special education. The city council identified that as the site for the school but perhaps more engagement needs to occur with the owners of the site. I will discuss that further with the council. In my recent i…
Apologies. The Department of foreign affairs, along with the Department of Health and others, provides financial support for centres in London, in particular, where there is a service to engage with survivors of mother and baby homes, advising them, counselling them and giving them the wherewithal to apply for the schemes. We will engage with our UK counterparts in respect of trying to ring fence that and avoid any l…
I propose to take Questions Nos. 1 to 7, inclusive, together.
I attended the European Council meeting on Thursday, 20 March where leaders continued discussions on Ukraine and European defence and security. Other topics discussed were the Middle East, competitiveness, the next multi-annual financial framework, MFF, new own resources, migration, oceans, multilateralism and the western Balkans. Leaders were joined by t…
I thank the Deputies for raising a variety of issues. Deputy Malcolm Byrne focused on the multi-annual financial framework. This will be a very challenging debate, which we commenced last March. I met the President of the Commission about six weeks ago for a substantive meeting on a range of issues. I emphasised the importance of the Common Agricultural Policy retaining its core ring-fenced funding framework. One of …
There can be NATO peacekeeping that is accordance with UN principles and the UN charter and the UN acknowledges that such as in the Balkans and so forth. It is not the end of neutrality. Neutrality is defined by membership of a military alliance. We are not members of a military alliance and we have no intention of becoming members of a military alliance. The idea that Russia would have a veto over Ireland's-----
A Security Council resolution can be vetoed by Russia.
The General Assembly was used decades ago. It is not a feasible option for sanctioning peace initiatives and the Deputy well knows it. It is not a viable or feasible approach. Every peacekeeping mission in which we have participated has been sanctioned by the Security Council and it is increasingly becoming more problematic to even get agreement on humanitarian corridors in places of conflict as we have experienced i…
We have had increased migration in the context of the numbers now applying which went from an average of 3,500 in 2019 to approximately 14,000 to 15,000 in the past two years. This has a serious impact on services and our system. We need to accelerate it and make it faster for both the application and appeals processes but the message must be there that there are rules in Ireland and they must be seen to be applied. …
On Ukrainian accession, Ireland has been one of the leaders in pushing for an acceleration of accession and the Commission is working away on it. Hungary is against it and its negativity has slowed down the process by indicating its opposition to the various processes involved in the Ukrainian accession to the European Union. This is a pity as I believe the people of Ukraine see their future in a European Union. They…
I propose to take Questions Nos. 8 to 19, inclusive, together.
The Cabinet committee on disabilities has been established to oversee the implementation of programme for Government commitments in the area of disability, with a specific focus on children’s disability services and disability services more generally under the forthcoming new national disability strategy. The Cabinet committee on disability last met on 5…
What is it called?
I thank all the Deputies for the issues raised. Deputy Bacik asked the initial question about therapists. Approximately 461 were approved by the Cabinet today. That was sweating the existing asset, if you like, within our third level system, seeing how many additional places we can provide in addition to those already in place across a range of therapies. The Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innov…
There will be engagement between the Department of Health, the Minister for Health, the HSE and CORU because there is an issue around recognition of qualifications for those who travel from overseas, even from the United Kingdom and within the European Union. It takes too long, given therapists are crucial. In other professions such as medicine it happens much more quickly in terms of mutual qualifications. There see…
I apologise. On dysplasia, I did not know that and was not aware of it. I will relay it to the Minister for Health. To Deputy Dempsey, I say independent living is important. She is correct a lot of parents have real anxiety about later life and if anything happens. That is something we are focused on. I spoke about Waterford, I think. To Deputy Ward, we are working to do everything we can to get places for children i…
I propose to take Questions Nos. 20 to 31, inclusive, together.
On 10 April, I announced the new phase of the Government’s shared island initiative in a keynote address to the fourth shared island forum. Our programme for Government sets out an ambitious agenda for building a shared island, backed by a further €1 billion commitment to the shared island fund out to 2035. Already on 25 February, the Government announc…
I thank the Deputies for raising a variety of issues. Deputy Shane Moynihan asked about the sports front. There has been a range of investments. Casement Park is a significant one, with a €50 million allocation. There is also the sports club electric vehicle, EV, charging scheme, which got into difficulty in terms of procurement and the roll-out of public EV charging points in community sports clubs across the island…