I thank the Deputy for raising what is a very important issue. I will talk to the Ministers for health and enterprise and others who can have an impact. It is a very serious issue because fake drugs can do real harm to people and damage their health.
It is an area that perhaps needs a higher profile focus. I will certainly take away the fact the Deputy has highlighted the issue. I will come back to him with the view…
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
The Government has welcomed the agreement and will be supporting it at EU level. Ireland's agrifood exports will benefit under the deal through easier access to the large Australian market. We believe this will give us more opportunities to sell our products due to tariff elimination. Tariffs will go down to zero on key EU export products such as cheese over three years. There will be recognition for iconic Irish geo…
I do not have the background to the specific case. Core funding now exceeds €436 million, up 62% since 2022, with 93%, or 4,590, of providers signed up, which keeps fees at 2021 levels. I will speak to the Minister on this. It is a matter that is kept under constant review. As the Deputy said, we do not want to lose anybody from the core funding framework. People may feel they can do better outside it, but it is not …
Again, I do not have the full background to the case here. Obviously, the Government has funded the building very well. The hot school meals programme has been rolled out very quickly and effectively on many fronts. There is a lot of debate around improving nutrition. However, fundamentally over the last three years, it has been rolled out at considerable pace across the length and breadth of the country. I will talk…
I thank the Deputy for raising the issue. The haulage industry is a key industry whose role in our modern economy has been underestimated in terms of getting goods from ports to shelves and from manufacturing facilities to the ships for our export markets. I am very interested in making sure that we have a sustainable haulage industry into the future. The Minister, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, has engaged with the industr…
The Minister has sought submissions from local authorities across the length and breadth of the country in respect of damage done in recent storms and flooding that occurred.
The Minister is assessing those submissions now with a view to allocations to try to help the county councils concerned.
First, I did not decline to answer any question, and it is wrong of the Deputy to suggest that I did. She knows full well that questions about hospital sites go to the Minister for Health.
I am sorry, no, I am not responsible for every individual Minister's decision-making. It is a well-known practice in the Dáil and the Oireachtas that questions go to the Minister who is accountable to the House in respect of the matter. Of course, I was aware of the decision, and the Minister would have informed me very early on, along with the Tánaiste, the Minister of State, Seán Canney, and other Ministers as to w…
Yes, but it is positive overall for healthcare, I would have thought.
I am responding to the issue. I met with the Before We Die group some weeks ago. This is on the agenda of the next Cabinet subcommittee on disability. I have spoken to the Minister for housing, the Minister for disability and the Minister for Health. What is needed here is a concerted, collective approach. I acknowledge that the current situation is not sustainable or satisfactory and creates undue pressure on parent…
I do not have the background to this. I learned to swim in the sea, actually, down in west Cork, or maybe Robert's Cove or somewhere like that, but we had a baths long ago. We used to call it the baths, the swimming pool-----
-----next to City Hall, and the craic was good. I passionately believe in swimming opportunities for young people and children in particular to learn how to swim, as Deputy Smith says, because water safety is essential and it can be a very joyous and healthy discipline for the rest of your life.
I will talk to the Minister, Deputy O'Brien. He is fairly innovative when it comes to projects in Fingal. I will see what can be done. I take the Deputy's point. The Minister of State with responsibility for sport is here. We will see what can be done in respect of the roof on the swimming pool in Portmarnock.
There has been a HSE review of the insourcing programme and practice. There has been huge investment since 2025. The Minister undertook a detailed survey of all insourcing activities within the HSE in light of concerns about an over-reliance in the system on supplementary capacity. That report was submitted and published by the Minister in July of last year. That led to a number of measures being taken, stricter cont…
I will talk to the Minister about it. What the Deputy has said sometimes illustrates - I will not say the futility of asking parliamentary questions, but you do tend to get standard replies from time to time. That was last February. The Minister has a huge capital budget. I am not saying capital is required here. I will talk to the Minister about this. I would be favourably disposed to it. Anything that can accelerat…
I propose to take Questions Nos. 1 to 10, inclusive, together.
On 24 February, I attended an online meeting of the coalition of the willing to mark the fourth anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The meeting was co-chaired by British Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, and the President of France, Emmanuel Macron, and was joined also by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine, as well as other leaders,…
It is the wrong area to ask about. We are on the coalition of the willing here.
The question relates to my attendance at the meeting of the coalition of the willing. It is striking that quite a number of Members just avoided any reference to my attendance at that meeting, which is illustrative, and not really good enough. If specific questions are tabled, we should concentrate on those during Taoiseach's Questions because we have the Order of Business for half an hour or 40 minutes on general is…
That is not obtuse. That is a fact. Sinn Féin has opposed the €90 billion.
I want to finish my point. There is a view abroad-----
Hungary has a view. Orbán has a view. Sinn Féin has a view. It is basically saying that Ukraine should surrender because if the Ukrainians do not get that budgetary package and a package to support them defend themselves, it is surrender. There is no other option for Ukraine-----
-----but to surrender if we do not get that €90 billion package across. I am shocked at Sinn Féin's position on it-----
-----but it is reflected in its questions. When I talk about the coalition of the willing, it is about Ukraine. All Sinn Féin can offer is one question on that and another on the ETB in Athlone, which has nothing at all to do with it. It just suggests that as far as Sinn Féin is concerned, Ukraine really does not matter and that has been its position----
-----since 2014.
We want more sanctions and there could be challenges down the line if the global crisis continues.
Deputy Byrne raised the issue of cybersecurity. It is a huge issue, and many private sector organisations are under fairly regular attack. A lot of them are occurring from within Russia. There could be third country backers that back certain hackers or people involved in cyberwarfare, or there can be criminal entities,…