That is being worked on. It has not been mothballed or anything like that. It is being progressed and we will come back to him on that.
Deputy Seamus McGrath made an excellent point about new active travel facilities. The facilitation of participation by people with disabilities should be built into public infrastructure, full stop. We were both at the opening of the marina promenade in Cork last week. It is an exce…
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
I thank the Deputy for raising the issue. This is without question the most serious issue to face the Irish economy in a long time. It is clear that the scale of these tariffs will be significant in European terms. Ireland does not believe in tariffs. The European Union does not believe in tariffs and does not want tariffs. The European Union has not started this; Ireland has not started this. Ours is a small open ec…
A meeting of party leaders will be convened. It would make more sense to wait until we see the announcement on the imposition of tariffs from the US side and the initial response from the EU. We have no issue with a Dáil debate. Next Tuesday would be a more optimal time because we will not have the full information as to what could potentially happen this afternoon or tomorrow. If people want a Dáil debate tomorrow e…
-----Ireland's detractors seek to undermine us in making those assertions.
We have always objected to and fought against that idea and notion. We have increased investment in infrastructure exponentially. We have invested in research and development and will continue to do so. The results have been there to see over the last five years. A lot of foreign direct investment has come into Ireland over recent years for a broad range of reasons.
I thank the Deputy for raising this issue and for making reference to Dr. McMonagle, whose bravery and courage we should salute. I did not get an opportunity to see the footage yesterday evening but I will in due course.
Every child in this country has the right to a school place. That is a fundamental constitutional right and it is the function of Government to vindicate it. That is my intention. I have already con…
That is our commitment. That is what the Minister of State, Deputy Michael Moynihan, and the Minister, Deputy McEntee, are working towards to make sure that happens and also for future years. The growth in numbers identifying with additional needs is growing exponentially. If one looks at the most recent census compared with previous censuses, one can see that there has been a significant increase. There are now 3,33…
On Monday afternoon, the Minister received from Ms Nunan, the negotiator who was appointed, her report on negotiations with religious organisations associated with the mother and baby institutions payment scheme. The Minister will have to review that report and come back to Government in relation to it.
The Government has not gone cap in hand to anyone. The Government took its own decisions in respect of a redress s…
As I stated, our view is that the orders have a collective and moral responsibility to respond to Ireland's legacy in relation to the mother and baby institutions. As I also stated, we just received the report on Monday.
We will assess that report and then consider what options we can take - within the law, obviously - in terms of persuading religious orders in respect of the mother and baby institutions. As I said …
I thank the Deputy for raising what is a key infrastructural issue in terms of facilitating the construction of thousands of houses but also in terms of the broader economy. The existing Uisce Éireann strategic funding plan, which was from 2025 to 2029, was approved last November. That committed over €10 billion in capital investment by Uisce Éireann in that period. There will be further additional investment in the …
The Deputy has made a number of fair points there. In the context of the national development plan, we will look at some of those issues in terms of, first of all, the need for additional capital funding for water because that is key, in my view, for housing and economic development, particularly in the context of the trade war that is potentially on our doorstep. We need to be very nimble in ensuring that we can res…
I thank the Deputy for raising this issue. She had been raising the issue for quite some time previously on the floor of the House in respect of special needs education more generally, but here she is specifically referencing Offaly School of Special Education. She referred to the most recent pilot scheme, which was announced last summer, in respect of 11 special schools across the country.
As I said earlier in repl…
I acknowledge there is a vacuum. We need a structured approach as a country between health and education. We are all aware that the CDNT workforce has grown. There have been issues with recruitment but progress is being made. We want to do this in a way that does not undermine capacity within the health service. We want to recruit and retain more therapists overall in the public service. We have to get the structure …
As I said earlier to Deputy Bacik, who raised this on Leaders' Questions - I have just responded to Deputy Nolan, who has also raised this issue - the Government's obligation is to vindicate the right of every child to education and to a school place. The Minister, Deputy McEntee, and the Minister of State, Deputy Michael Moynihan, are working flat out with the National Council for Special Education and the Departmen…
I am not disagreeing with anything the Deputy is saying. The issue is solutions and we have got to work on it. My own view is that the progressing disability programme, which was developed back in about 2013, has not worked, or the particular models. I want to pay tribute to people working in CDNTs because they have had huge burdens and workloads but the problem is, prior to 2013, special schools had therapists. They…
The Minister, Deputy McEntee, and the Minister of State, Deputy Moynihan, have met the parents. We are saying we are doing everything we can to provide places. We have already provided 372 school classes. We are making very significant progress this year. Delivery is more important than making promises. Next September, we want every child to have a school place that is appropriate for the child. That is what is being…
I am not an expert on discs in terms of presentation and so on. I will ask the Minister responsible to come back to me on it and to respond to the specific query the Deputy raised this morning, if that is okay.
I am very familiar with the service, and Deputy Pádraig O'Sullivan would have raised it with me. I think Councillor Tony Fitzgerald, as the Deputy knows, has done fantastic work in that area over the years and has been very active on this. Hence the allocation. I spoke to the former Minister, Roderic O'Gorman, on foot of representations from Deputy O'Sullivan and Councillor Fitzgerald specifically on this issue. I wi…
I am not familiar with the full background of the specific application and this specific wind farm development. Obviously, I would want to be apprised of that in terms of what the issues are around planning and so forth.
The Government will not be introducing a moratorium on onshore wind, however. It is just simply not in a position to do that given the huge pressures we are under in terms of the increasing prices, …
We do not have great resources other than wind and solar-----
----- but I will talk to the Minister in respect of the guidelines as to when they will be issued. I will come back to Deputy McGuinness on that.
I fully accept that there is a real need and issue with regard to expanding capacity of undergraduate dentistry places in Ireland. I understand that the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland RCSI will be producing approximately 75 graduate dentists. There is an issue as there will be 25 Irish and EU graduates and 40 non-EU graduates. RCSI is hoping to increase capacity by approximately 20 extra places. Then we have UC…
I am aware of reports in the media in respect of a decision ordering two Irish citizens to leave Germany. That is of fundamental concern in terms of the freedom of movement rights that EU citizens have. Approximately four individuals, I believe, are being deported, including two Irish citizens, namely, Shane O'Brien and Roberta Murray. The other individuals are from the United States and Poland. The embassy in Berlin…
The individual buyers from the help to buy or first home schemes, which are very significant interventions by the Government. The waiver of development levies goes to the builders. It has led-----
Yes.