Again, I think that should not happen tomorrow. I do not believe people should withdraw their services and I do not think it is the correct or appropriate action. Department officials have been engaging sensitively with the relevant stakeholders and the Law Society. That includes legal professionals and their representative bodies on the proposed changes. That discussion has been ongoing for quite some time. There is…
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
First, the Government in good faith, in terms of the Deputy's legislation, proposed a timed amendment to do further work. The Minister, Deputy Burke, and his officials have been developing a policy to provide pregnancy loss leave to women in the workplace, particularly women who have suffered a pregnancy loss before 23 weeks. The Minister met with the Oireachtas cross-party group on pregnancy loss in January. He will…
I will talk to the Minister for Transport and the Road Safety Authority in respect of this. I cannot operationally run the Road Safety Authority. There had been some progress in terms of reducing-----
----- the timelines. I will talk to the Minister and ask him to engage with the Road Safety Authority to continue to work on getting waiting times for driving tests down.
Sorry, about 14,500?
There will always be people who will leave a job or occupation. I think there would have to be a survey done of the 189 specifically to ascertain why they decided to leave An Garda Síochána. The good news is we are oversubscribed in terms of applications and there are very healthy numbers going into Templemore on a regular basis now to qualify to become a member of An Garda Síochána. Those coming out of Templemore ar…
That is a matter that the Garda should evaluate and do a survey to see whether there are underlying reasons.
I thank Deputy Smith for raising this matter. I want to acknowledge his strong commitment to ensuring that children and their families in Cavan who need early intervention and therapy services can access that support in a timely way. My understanding is that there is no after-school school support provided by Cavan CDNT, but Enable Ireland apparently advises that it is planning on putting in an application to provide…
In any event, it says here that it is planning to put in an application. I will follow up with the Minister and see if we can get to the bottom of that in terms of getting it progressed.
The long-term illness scheme is under review at the moment. It has not been added to for a long time because other provision has overtaken the practice of having the long-term illness scheme. The condition that the Deputy raised has very severe and profound impacts on patients. We have taken a variety of other measures to alleviate the cost of medication, for example, long-term medication, for people and so forth. I …
I did not get the specific question asked, but I agree that there should be a centralised system whereby if a garda is convicted of a criminal offence, that should be collated, recorded and collected by An Garda Síochána just as the Defence Forces are now devising a system to do that in respect of Defence Forces members who may have committed a criminal offence. That level of data and knowledge is required centrally …
First of all, I appreciate the Deputy raising this issue. That incident was shocking, but there are too many shocking incidents in relation to scramblers. I know that Deputy McAuliffe has been working with the Deputy and others to deal with this issue. It does need enforcement. About 1,000 scramblers have been seized over the past number of years, but we need a full-on focus on this. The law is now there. It needs en…
First of all, I understand that a person has been arrested but I cannot comment, as I do not want to prejudice the outcome of this. We just need to be careful that we do not draw conclusions that might be the wrong conclusions in respect of this specific case. There is a zero-tolerance approach to racism generally, but we have to wait and see what emerges here first before drawing the kinds of implied conclusions tha…
I think there has been huge expansion of greenways and huge investment by Government. It is an area I am particularly interested in myself. I think it has been transformative over the last five years. The level of investment that has taken place across the length and breadth of the country has created greater socialisation, which enhances security as well. In terms of the initial design, safety and security dimension…
I thank Deputy Cahill for raising this issue. It is fair to say that he has been a persistent advocate and strong voice for rural Ireland in respect of this issue, particularly advocating for young couples and young people generally to be in a position to build houses in their localities, very often on their land. This will be of significance in helping to sustain rural communities across the western and south-wester…
I thank Deputy Gould for raising the issue. I am not clear as to why, if he posted it last Friday, it did not get there quicker, but in any event, there is a huge challenge with overcrowding at the moment. Colleagues in the Deputy's party have been raising the overcrowding issue with the Minister. The Minister is under huge pressure in terms of capacity constraints in our prisons and the resulting challenge faced by …
First of all, I wish that everyone attending the festival enjoys it. Sixty-five thousand is a huge number. It is obviously a very successful festival. I am not familiar with the council's arrangements but the implication was that the council was providing the transport.
Yes. That is kind of unusual, but in any event that is what happened. Maybe the council was hoping to get it off the ground and that it would then sustain itself. I am not familiar with the background as to why the council pulled back on that aspect of it but I will talk to people to see what can be done there. Normally, Governments do not support transport to festivals.
I will talk to the Minister and see what can be done.
In the aftermath of the Charleton inquiry, for example, there were significant awareness levels in relation to whistleblowing more generally. I will raise the issue with the Minister. Operationally, the Garda Commissioner and, indeed, all workplaces have responsibility for ensuring that any whistleblower who provides a disclosure in accordance with the Act is not penalised. There are very clear strictures in that reg…
I move the following Supplementary Estimates:
Vote 30 - Agriculture, Food and the Marine (Supplementary Estimate)
That a supplementary sum not exceeding €100,000,000 be granted to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of December, 2026, for the salaries and expenses of the Office of the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, including certain services …
I propose to take Questions Nos. 1 to 20, inclusive, together.
The Cabinet committee on health last met on 30 April 2026 and is due to meet again shortly. The Cabinet committee oversees implementation of programme for Government commitments in relation to health, receives detailed reports on identified policy areas and considers health reforms, including Sláintecare, the reform of public health and health system pre…
I thank all Deputies for raising the various issues they have raised. Deputy Coppinger raised the issue of the Children's Health Ireland inquiry. This is a scoping inquiry in the first instance, essentially to scope out the terms of reference and what will be covered by an inquiry, and to look at the statutory format the inquiry will take. I would encourage all groups to participate and engage with Remy Farrell.
In …
On treatment abroad, that applies to the entirety of the European Union. It is meant to.
Again, I will talk to the Minister in respect of that. Generally speaking, across the board, treatment abroad has not had an issue in terms of its funding. That has never proved to be a problem in the past.