Dáil Éireann has not been in a position to ratify the CETA deal even though it has been in provisional operation since 2018. What does that say about Irish legislators in terms of what matters to the Irish people, what matters for Irish jobs and what is essentially the bread and butter of people's lives on the table?
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
This works for workers. The trade deal works for workers. That is the point.
It is far too early to make decisions in relation to that right now. We have to see where this lands. I do not believe the capacity to reshore pharmaceuticals in the short term is there. The issue in the short term is more the pausing of investment decisions for the future. That is what would concern me. American companies have grown strong in Ireland. This is a point we are making bilaterally to the US. They are an …
First of all, no school should be in that position. I do not believe there was a necessity to write that letter to the parents at that time, to be frank about it. I have a long-time involvement in education. I have a lot of experience with the education world. In the past, any time a school was in difficulty, dialogue opened up with the Department and the Department always came in to help, particularly if a school wa…
The Deputy has an awful habit of trying to name-call and label people. He does it for political reasons. Sometimes, I question his sincerity in regard to these matters because a letter was sent-----
I am just saying what happened. I am not victim-blaming anybody. I was making a general point. I have been through this before with schools. We help schools when they engage with the Department. It has happened at different times that particular schools have had particular problems.
A letter was sent to the chair of the board on 14 March outlining the importance of the role of the FSSU, that is, the financial suppor…
I would make the point that every child attending that primary school now has free schoolbooks, which those children never had before, because the previous Government took really decisive actions to make life better for kids in all schools.
Hot school meals is another initiative that was taken, but Deputy Murphy ignores all of that and makes assertions of neglect or whatever, which is not the case.
That is an awful commentary on the Mail on Sunday.
I agree with the Deputy that tariffs are bad all round. Essentially, they represent a tax on people. They will be a tax on people's groceries and medication in the US. Europe will not respond prematurely or in a knee-jerk way. Europe will engage in a strategic response. The objective of the European Union's response will be to encourage the United States to the negotiating table in order to get a mitigation of whatev…
Absolutely. We have a very strong aid programme that is conducted by Irish Aid and a number of well-established non-governmental organisations in this field. We will have to provide aid to the people of Myanmar following the earthquake. The slaughter in Gaza continues. We have been one of the biggest supporters of UNRWA; I believe we have provided about €58 million in core support to it. Our overall support to the pe…
Those are wrong assertions. It is important that the Deputy engages properly on the issue and finds out the facts.
I will go through it here. I have just been on to the Department about the matter. It is not accurate at all that the increase is related to Gaza, and it is wrong to assert that. It is just plain wrong to assert that. Basically, the Department did see an increase in applications for exemptions from October 2023. However, these were representative of an increase in applications for Irish-registered civil aircraft oper…
There was no connection to the United States military or to Israel. Correlations have been drawn between the initial Hamas attack on Israel in October 2023 and the increase in applications for exemptions from that month. The two are unrelated.
Applications for exemptions predominately fall into one of two categories, namely US civil air operators contracted to carry US military personnel with their unloaded, standar…
That case has nothing at all to do with Gaza or America. People just deliberately jump to conclusions to paint the wrong picture about the objectives or intentions of the Government. That is wrong.
I met with the President von der Leyen last week in Paris on the margins of the meeting on Ukraine. At the EU summit the previous week, I also met her to discuss the matter. On Sunday, I had a phone call with President von der Leyen to discuss it further. As stated, we have not had the EU's substantive response yet because the tariffs are only due to be announced tomorrow.
On bourbon, those were already measures tha…
The Tánaiste has been in touch with Secretary of State Lutnick. That communication will continue.
I thank the Deputy for raising this issue. It is fair to say that over the past three decades, there have been very extensive inquiries into sexual abuse in this country in almost all settings and it continues. We have to evaluate that experience as well. There have been very extensive inquiries. There has been horrific abuse, which has visited trauma on thousands of people in different settings, including in healthc…
I thank the Deputy for raising this issue. I pay tribute to An Garda Síochána for the outstanding work it does to keep us all safe and protect society and our citizens. I pay tribute to the Deputy’s family on their distinguished contribution to An Garda Síochána. We are recruiting more and more gardaí. As we recruit more, we will be in a better position to deploy gardaí to Kildare and indeed farther afield.
This has been an ongoing issue. I am aware that Deputy Paul McAuliffe led on this, and legislation was passed at the time. Implementation is very important. I will ask the Minister for Justice to engage with the Garda Commissioner. As the Deputy knows, the deployment of gardaí is an operational matter. We are told that repeatedly. If you establish more units, you reduce the number of gardaí available for broader duti…
I thank the Deputy for raising the issue. My understanding is that number has been reduced, but 9,000 still waiting is too many. What happened was that the scheme was expanded to accommodate everybody. When the Minister paid out what the Deputy suggested, he made advance payments. Some of them were over what people might have been entitled to, and then people were concerned about having to make payments back. In any …
The situation in relation to Daniel is unacceptable in many respects. I have read the article. My understanding is that there is engagement, and the clinical nurse specialist is engaging with the family today.
No, but there has been engagement. My understanding is that there is a pathway, but I would obviously prefer if the team in CHI communicated with the family. My understanding is that prior to coming in this afternoon, progress was made in respect of the case. I will follow up on this, and I know the Minister is here as well. There is a pathway, hopefully in the shorter term. In the first instance, the clinical nurse …
More and more hotels are decanting in respect of IPAS and the beneficiaries of temporary protection, BOTPs, over the last while. Obviously, we will do everything we possibly can to increase numbers. There are significant issues globally in terms of confidence in the world economy - that may be a factor playing out - but again, it is early days yet to be writing off the tourism industry. Our tourism industry is very r…
I propose to take Questions Nos. 1 to 13, inclusive, together.
The National Emergency Co-ordination Group is the central Government platform, established as part of the response to a threatened or ongoing national level emergency, under the strategic emergency management framework. All Government Departments, local authorities, emergency services and agencies are represented on the NECG.
The Department of Housing, …