The Deputy is in a parallel universe that is governed by politics, electoral gain and nothing else.
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
Others in the House raised this issue-----
-----substantively during Leaders' Questions and I gave comprehensive replies to those.
I made it very clear that the critical care wing is needed now-----
-----and that the Government is very supportive of the Rotunda's plans.
We will continue to support them. The Minister is now engaging-----
Obviously the thalidomide facilitation process is under way under the chairmanship of Mr. Justice Paul Gilligan. There has been good engagement with the Irish Thalidomide Association, ITA, and the Irish Thalidomide Survivors Society. The Tánaiste and I met the ITA twice in the last quarter of 2025, in October and then before Christmas. These were constructive meetings. Several complex issues were raised. Officials ar…
-----to exercise and hydrotherapy facilities, and personal living supports. All that is in place but there are outstanding issues we want to resolve as quickly as we possibly can. We believe the Mr. Justice Gilligan process is a good process and one that should be availed of.
Yes. We will come back with a date to the organisation.
I have dealt with this extensively in the House. There are 4,000 schools in our system. By the start of the next school year, there will be up to 25,000 SNAs. As I said earlier, there has been a 45% increase in the number of SNAs over five years. I would caution against the breadth and the range of services the Deputy says SNAs should be obliged to provide. We need to be very targeted in our approach. The children wh…
I do understand, Deputy, that there are those, like your good self, among us who have plenty of energy and so on. The Deputy will recall that was discussed by a previous Government and Cabinet. I will engage with the Minister for justice and ask him where that legislation lies. As the Deputy knows, there have been different views across the House on how far the legislation is going. Some wanted the opening hours to g…
In terms of cancellations, the latest information I have from CHI and the Department of Health for last year states that about 164 surgeries were cancelled, some due to clinical decisions. Some 48% were cancelled due to clinical decisions. Some 19% were due to personal or family reasons and some were due to a patient's ill-health, about 11%.
Of those, 115 cases were replaced with another spinal patient. I would like to see more follow-through on the number of patients who were cancelled. Timely information should be given to parents of children in situations like that. The Deputy must be aware why phase 1 of the Nayagam report has not been published.
There was a court injunction. The Deputy must be aware of that. My understanding is that there was a commitment given to the High Court that until phase 2 was completed, phase 1 would not be published. There is a lot of litigation around this and that is the main reason stuff is not being published. The inquiry will be focused on that.
I will believe there will be progress on that.
I will undertake to put this item on the agenda for the next meeting of the Cabinet subcommittee.
I cannot get into individual allocations in specific schools without being aware of the details. That is a matter for the National Council for Special Education in the first instance. Yes, the school should appeal. The review has been paused. It was to continue until March. The Minister is going to engage with the NCSE. For those schools where decisions have been taken, there will be engagement between the NCSE and t…
I will communicate the issue the Deputy has articulated to the Minister for Transport. In general, road funding is increasing across the board. There are significant increases this year. I do not have the specific county allocations, but I will raise the issue that the Deputy has raised with the Minister. In the context of the flooding and so forth, estimates are coming back in from local authorities in respect of th…
I understand that funding to get the ball rolling was allocated to that project by the Minister today. It was announced at 12.45 p.m., subject to being checked. The Deputy can check that. I do not race ahead of the announcement of the news like some people do. I will leave it at that, but I acknowledge that it is an important project.
He has got a kind of half-positive response from me. My good colleague here has alerted me to the fact that the announcement today includes an allocation of funding for the commencement of that project.
We are obviously talking about the next school year. As I said earlier in respect of Our Lady of Good Counsel, no school should lose close to six SNAs in one fell swoop or one decision. I have communicated that to the NCSE. I said it to both Ministers as well when we discussed this. Everyone acknowledges that it is too severe an impact. It is probably because there have not been regular reviews of allocations and suc…
Sorry, we are increasing the number of SNAs. There will be no cuts to the number of SNAs in our school system, no SNA will lose his or her job and no SNA will be taken from any school in this school year. Those are the fundamentals. It is important that needs are reviewed and assessed on an ongoing basis. That is logical and that is the way it should be. For the next school year, we will be at 25,000 SNAs. That will …
I met with the Before We Die campaign group and we had a very good discussion. These are very serious issues. There needs to be stronger co-ordination between local authorities, section 39 bodies and Government Departments, particularly the Department of housing and the Department of disability.
I am placing it on the agenda of the next Cabinet subcommittee meeting with a view to creating a structure that will work …
Between the local authorities, Government and the approved housing bodies, we should be able to create a structure that is proactively supporting families in this situation.
I think the Deputy asked me about this last Wednesday.