No.
TDs / Micheál Martin
Micheál Martin
Taoiseach
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0
questions asked
Members of the Government answer questions rather than ask them
688,766
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686,628 as a minister, 2,138 as a TD
197
votes recorded
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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
No, but you want me to intervene.
I will speak through the Chair.
Deputy Ó Murchú also raised the EU-Israel Association Agreement and the occupied territories BiIl. Again, I did get it on the agenda of the European Council meeting this week. The Minister, Deputy McEntee, also has raised it repeatedly at FAC, and we will continue to do that.
In terms of Deputy Quaide-----
Sorry?
All right. Deputy Quaide referred to 500 Ukrainians. Have they received notice? I will talk to the Minister in respect of that. There is a significant number there and, obviously, the impacts for the children will be significant. I will revert to the Deputy.
As Deputy Quaide acknowledged in the question, there are issues in terms of commercial premises, the costs involved and the sustainability of all of that. Trans…
Interoperability is a long-standing principle. If we operate in places like Lebanon on peacekeeping missions, we require interoperability. Currently in Lebanon, we are with Polish troops in IRISHPOLBATT, some Hungarian troops and some Maltese who train in Ireland. Our roles, as Deputy Tóibín knows, are always peacekeeping, peace monitoring, civilian support and so on like that. I do not see any conspiracies.
Deputy Coppinger asked a philosophical question. She could have asked it a century ago as to whether there should be a millionaire. Of course, a lot of this trillionaire stuff is on paper. America has its system and Ireland has its system. We have a fairly progressive taxation system in Ireland where the highest paid by a long shot - the top 5% - pay nearly 50% of all income tax. I can check that but it is roughly wh…
We do not have any trillionaire.
I am not being facetious but what Deputy Coppinger is asking is whether someone should take all of the wealth at some stage. We have a different view of the creation of wealth and so on. I was at an event recently honouring Chuck Feeney. He got rid of all of his wealth in an altruistic and philanthropic approach. He made it his aim to get rid of all his wealth before he died. Ireland's universities benefited from thi…
It is a bit more complex than we have time to discuss.
Deputy Roderic O'Gorman spoke about Bosnia-Herzegovina and its succession path to the European Union is a bit more complex than others. There are challenges within Bosnia-Herzegovina, particularly Republika Srpska in terms of how it is operating. We will work with it to try to progress the application.
Deputy Shane Moynihan spoke about competitiveness. A roadmap has been agreed between the Council, the Parliament an…
I thank the Leas-Cheann Comhairle for his latitude.
I apologise. I have been raising Sudan consistently at European Union meetings. It is shocking and horrific and it has not got the same international attention or profile as other wars have. The level of human displacement in Sudan is quite shocking. I have called on some of the neighbouring states that are arming the different belligerents to stop because there is too much external manipulation of Sudan, too much ex…
I propose to take Questions Nos. 24 to 43, inclusive, together.
The Government published our new national digital and AI strategy, a commitment in the programme for Government, in February. Digital Ireland – Connecting our People, Securing our Future sets out the Government's ambition to 2030 to strengthen Ireland's position as a digital leader and a global hub for applied AI innovation. Through Digital Ireland, we …
I thank all of the Deputies who raised various issues. I think the common denominator among all the contributions is the issue of protecting children, in particular, from the very harmful effects of social media. I understand and share parents’ concerns about the damage being done to children by social media. It was not today or yesterday that I described it as "the public health [challenge] of our time".
It was actually over two years ago when I made that very point at our own Ard-Fheis in terms of the challenges. There is no question that it is harming cognitive development and making many children’s lives much more challenging, difficult and, in some cases, miserable. It can facilitate bullying and much worse. It is ruining childhoods for too many children, so action needs to be taken.
I respect Deputy Malcolm Byr…
There was not a better way of doing it. Deputy Tóibín was at it as well.
Through the Chair, we need to be consistent on this. It worked.
It was impactful and it was a start in getting young people out of utilisation. By the way, all of the Deputies should leave their phones outside the Dáil. Let us start here. We are talking about the pervasive impact. All of the Deputies have mobile phones.
They do not concentrate on the job at hand.
The Deputy just pressed it now again.
Deputy Connolly raised the issue of the importance of having children and young people involved. I agree with that. Deputy Paul Murphy and Deputy Connolly raised the issue of what happens at 15 or 16. The education piece is very important, but it is the scale and the overwhelming nature of social media that seem to me to be quite different from the scale associated with earlier restrictive practices like censorship o…
-----particularly in health diagnostics, in terms of what it can do in disease prevention or understanding pathways in getting to develop medicines and interventions that could accelerate really better treatments for people in a whole range of areas. Therefore, there are opportunities. I visited Analog last week, and it is very clear to me that it is already looking towards the next era, when sensors and semiconducto…
The events of the last few days in Northern Ireland have filled us with horror. The attack on that young person two nights ago was absolutely savage and horrific. Our thoughts are with the victim and his family. It is beyond our comprehension that a person could wield such violence on another individual in such a manner. The very graphic representation of that on social media has shocked many people. Like the Deputy,…