Of course it is a factor. There is no question it is a factor.
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 this matter. We should say the first priority of the Government and the Minister, Deputy O'Callaghan, is to get more gardaí on our streets. This is manifesting itself, particularly in our larger cities.
There has been positive feedback to the numbers coming out of Templemore and there has been greater visibility, particularly last winter, but we need to spread that out across the count…
I thank the Deputy for her advocacy for Blanchardstown and TU Dublin. I have identified a group that has been established. I think former Secretary General Jim Breslin chairs that group with senior officials representing the Department of justice, An Garda Síochána, the Department of further and higher education, the Office of Public Works and the Higher Education Authority. It first met in January and is continuing …
In the most recent budget, we gave the largest ever single year increase in disability services. It went up 20%, which was €628 million. That is what happened with disability services in that budget. In addition to that, there have been significant increases to core payments and domiciliary care increases,. One-off payments for all were removed because they could not continue forever. We cannot do €3 billion in one-o…
Work is ongoing on the cost-of-disability payment. There was a good summit recently. We have to engage with the sector before it is designed. The Deputy should not pretend it can be done at the stroke of a pen. It cannot, and she knows that well.
I heard about that last week, and I am making inquiries on that and organising a series of meetings.
I am not clear as to why the cafe has to close for six months, to be frank. I will pursue that with security and so on. I will do that.
On the hospitality sector more generally, thousands of people work in the hospitality sector. A lot of young people and students work in the sector and so on. It is a cynical Opposition play to talk about McDonald's. They are all owned by franchisees. The Deputy knows that.
Why does she keep on talking about the big boys? It is individual franchisees in any of these chains. She knows that. The bottom line is we have to sustain employment in domestic services sectors as well.
Fianna Fáil has not abandoned ordinary people. The highest number of social houses built on record was built last year - 9,000 new social houses. That is the way to deal with the housing crisis which has led to the rent increases.
We are about building more homes but you are not. You are just thinking about savings schemes.
You are not.
You have a challenge. It is not good enough to come in and attack the Government all the time and come up with nothing yourself.
And that has been the subject-----
I have looked online and looked at your proposals. They are empty.
Empty.
That is not my view. Anybody could go and look at it.
We will do our housing construction agency when we get around to it. For God's sake, come on.
Rents are too high overall. No-one is arguing about that. There is a lot of pressure on people. Supply is the only way to deal with it. What I would say on the reforms that came in is that the six-year tenancy rule is a very significant enhanced protection for existing tenants. Nothing like it was in place before. We are dealing with new tenancies here in terms of the Daft.ie index, but the vast majority of existing …
-----to get to the €20 billion the Central Bank says is required to deal with the demand that is out there in respect of housing supply.
I thank the Deputy for raising this. I will talk to the Minister for housing in respect of this. We should be trying to streamline the whole system, which we are doing. People are waiting for OT reports and so on and the idea of paying in instalments pending the receipt of the report is a valid option. We would like to see greater simplification of the requirements overall to speed up the whole application process. I…
In the last budget we increased the level of State investment in early learning by about 12%. We cannot do everything in one budget. This is a five-budget Government. Childcare is a key issue; it is in the programme for Government. All three parties in the Government are committed to it. Decisions were taken on the last occasion about disability, for example, which went up dramatically. The income thresholds are incr…
I will keep him in mind for the courthouse.
First of all, it is as the Deputy has outlined in terms of the Ballybrack-Loughlinstown primary care centre, which was through the operational lease model. Then the preferred operator encountered difficulties with the economic viability of the proposed project. A service-led review is being conducted. The Department of Health is awaiting an update from HSE primary care in Dublin south on the status of this review. In…
To be fair to the Minister, Deputy Browne, I think he has been very responsive to these issues. The fact is that the Minister and the Minister of State, Deputy Moran, and the Minister of State, Deputy O’Sullivan, went to visit and saw the situation at first hand. I will talk to the Minister and the Ministers of State in respect of the progression of such a scheme, if that has been committed to, to see what the up-to-…
That is very worrying indeed. I will talk to the Minister for Health in respect of this issue in terms of whether interim measures can be introduced to provide a service to the parents and children involved, and then on what the longer term solution will be in terms of recruitment.