First, I join the Ceann Comhairle in welcoming the Polish community in the Gallery in celebrating their constitution day. I pay tribute to Deputy Malcolm Byrne, in particular, who is the convenor of the Irish Polish parliamentary group. I welcome the ambassador to-be Mr. Artur Michalski to the House.
I fully reject the Deputy’s analysis of the situation. The first point I would make is that yet again she is ignoring…
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
Since the war broke out, the Deputy keeps pretending it has not happened.
It is almost as if she is living in a parallel universe. We have a huge issue-----
-----as have the world and Europe because of that war which is following on earlier shocks, in terms of the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the energy crisis that happened then. We need a Government-----
-----and we need a political response that understands the seismic potential damage of this crisis. The Deputy is ignoring it and that is irresponsible and negligent. Anybody I meet, at European level or anywhere, is very concerned about not only the short-term impact but the medium- and long-term impacts to the world of this energy shock crisis. That is not overstating it - that is what people are saying.
We have a…
What happens in October if this crisis does not abate? What happens in January? What happens our housing investments or our investments across in education, health and childcare? The USC brings in €5 billion to €6 billion. The Deputy wants something for everyone in the audience. She wants universal energy credits. She wants to give credits to the wealthiest in society. She does not believe in targeting anymore. Her m…
We have to think even short term to October. We should be looking at more permanent measures that help to alleviate the cost of living. Tá géarghá é sin a dhéanamh. Tá an-chuid déanta againn agus tá níos mó le déanamh againn dan dabht. It is not next year's budget but next October's budget, which is a number of months away.
No, not necessarily, and the Deputy knows that is not the truth either. We know that we have to help people over next winter, which will be a crucial period, but we are going to do it in a measured, sensible way, not Sinn Féin's way, which is the Liz Truss way,-----
-----which nearly blew the British economy apart. That is where Sinn Féin is going.
Hold on a second. The budget that we announced last year-----
We have introduced permanent measures that reduce the cost of living. In terms of healthcare, we eliminated all hospital charges. In terms of education, there are free primary schoolbooks.
In terms of primary schools, there are free hot school meals. These are measures that matter. We have expanded the back to school allowance and so on.
In terms of the fuel allowance, we expanded that.
The Deputies have to keep interrupting because they do not like the truth, but 450,000 working families benefit from the fuel allowance. We brought in the working family payment within that. We have done very effective, targeted measures, including free contraception, HRT, and going right through the health services.
These all reduce the cost of living for working families. Sinn Féin chooses to ignore that.
I welcome at long last that Sinn Féin has acknowledged that there is a war in the Middle East. That is progress from its perspective-----
-----but I do not accept Sinn Féin's approach to how to resolve the issues for people.
I fundamentally disagree with the Deputy's proposition. The State is investing the majority of funding in housing right now and has been for the last three to four years.
Deputy Bacik's presentation, saying that we are favouring the private market, does not add up. There are record levels of State investment, nearly up to €10 billion this year.
They are not tax breaks at all. Come on, the Deputy knows it. That is untrue. Let us have an honest debate about it. The only thing Labour has produced in its policy responses is a State housing development agency. That is all. Not one paragraph in it is fleshed out at all, as far as I can see.
I will make this point to the Deputy. Thirty-six thousand houses were built last year. Supply is the key here. Labour keeps opposing measures that will add supply. The Deputy talks about an eviction ban. She said it would slow down homelessness. It would slow down supply, and did slow down supply. Be in no doubt that supply is the key. We need to get to 50,000 houses a year.
That needs to be balanced with public sector investment and private sector investment. "Private sector contribution" should not be seen as a dirty term, as some on the left see it.
It is a very important contributor to getting to 50,000 or 60,000 houses per annum. The momentum is very strong now. Unfortunately, this crisis in the Middle East could be problematic in time.
We need that war to end. We have built about 170,000 houses since 2020 and 50,000 apartments have been built. There were 8,000 permissions in quarter 4 of 2025, up 20%, and 20,000 houses were granted permission in 2025, which is the highest number since 2009. Commencement notices were up 184% in quarter 1 of 2026. Real dwelling investment was up by close to 20% in the first three quarters of 2025. Construction employ…
I am not missing anything here. That is significant because it means the measures we have introduced are helping first-time buyers, albeit at prices that are still too high, but the only way we will deal with that price issue is by having more supply. We need a more collective approach to housing supply and not to oppose every single thing that the Government brings in.
In terms of the reforms, the Deputy knows well…