It is very serious. I spoke to the Attorney General about this yesterday. Up to 62 cases have to be looked at. We were only briefed on Monday evening, again due to legal constraints in terms of how it can be shared. We will have to deal with that, yes, but the Deputy should please not trot out reprehensible comments about people's motivations. That is just wrong.
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
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
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| 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
It is too serious for that.
The Stardust fire was a national tragedy that has left an enduring legacy of pain for the country, particularly the people of north Dublin and the families of the 48 young people who were tragically killed. They suffered a terrible loss, and there has been a lasting impact on the survivors who were injured in the fire. Following the State apology and engagement with the legal representatives of the families, the Gove…
I will revert to Deputy Gannon.
Is this in relation to-----
I am familiar with the issue. I will engage with the Minister for public expenditure on this in order to see where we are. The issue of CIÉ pensions needs to be sorted as well. My understanding is that we are close to getting that one resolved. I will see where we are in respect of the An Post and Eir pensions.
I will engage more with the Deputy on this matter. I will certainly see what potentially can be done in respect of the utilisation of these devices, particularly to prevent antisocial behaviour.
In the budget, about €2.74 billion was allocated to the Garda in the recent budget. Within that is enough money for about 1,000 new gardaí, 200 more Garda staff and a doubling of the Garda Reserve to more than 600 this year. A total of 223 trainees entered Templemore in November. That is the largest intake to Templemore since 2014. That brought the total number of trainees to enter Templemore to 794 in 2025, which is…
Since Deputy Pat the Cope Gallagher raised this with me, I met with the Minister. The challenge is that if the contract had not been signed yesterday, we would have no service at all.
Let us try to share the problem now. If it had not been signed yesterday, there would be no service. We have to try to work within that constraint. There was one tenderer to my knowledge. The Minister does not get involved in the tendering negotiations. He cannot. I presume the Deputy approves of that in the sense that we do not get involved with companies, tendering processes and all of that. The fact that there was…
We are looking to review this within three months and to engage with the successful bidder for this contract.
I certainly will. I will engage with the Deputy in the aftermath of this. Is he saying that any Irish citizen entering the UK? Does it include Northern Ireland?
We will pursue this with Aer Lingus and more generally. I will talk to Deputy Gallagher too.
I accept the issues that have been raised by the Deputy. Ten recent break-ins seems to be a fairly high number. I will engage with the Minister for Justice, Home Affairs and Migration and the Garda Commissioner in respect of maybe specific actions to stem the tide there and to get to the bottom of what is going on in terms of that level of that particular type of crime. We will also make representations in terms of t…
I thank the Deputy for raising a very important issue. There was a meeting this morning of the Cabinet subcommittee on evaluating Storm Chandra. We will deal further with the issue of insurance but there needs to be a balanced, combined approach between the insurance industry and the State. It involves the investment the State is making in a quite significant number of flood relief programmes and the degree to which …
In my view, institutionalisation was the great stain historically on Irish mental healthcare. Without question, we over-institutionalised in the past. Over the past 40 years, we have substantially deinstitutionalised mental healthcare from the old-type buildings and have put more emphasis on primary care and community-based mental healthcare. I accept we have a lot more progress to make and a lot more to do but a lot…
As I have outlined, we have given a huge funding allocation to An Garda Síochána and record numbers are going through Templemore. A total of 223 trainees entered in November, which was the largest intake since 2014. The total number of trainees to enter Templemore in 2025 was 794, which was the largest yearly total since 2018. A total of 215 trainees entered on Monday, 9 February. That is the third intake in a row wh…
There is established industrial relations machinery to deal with disputes, be they local disputes in particular hospitals or national disputes, and I encourage all involved to refer this to the industrial relations process so that these issues can be addressed.
We need to stand back a bit in terms of the situation regarding SNAs. There has been an incremental exponential increase in the number of SNAs. We now have about 25,000 SNAs - 24,925.
I know. I am making the point about whether the view is that we keep on increasing, that we have no reviews or that we do not evaluate the system. We do need to stand back a bit.
I spoke to a principal recently who said we need other forms of provision as well. We are bringing in school therapy for special schools through the national therapy service. In some continental schools, they have behavioural therapists whi…
I thank the Deputy and I understand where he is coming from to a degree, but the requirement for a licence to sell tobacco and nicotine inhaling products was enacted in December 2023 and it came into effect earlier this month. It follows on from a recommendation for a national tobacco control policy from Tobacco Free Ireland and it is designed to give an enforcement authority to the HSE's national environmental healt…
There has been huge investment in the northside of Cork by this Government and the previous Government. There has been huge investment and regeneration in the Deputy's area, which he has ignored. We are progressing the elective hospital in Glanmire.
It is progressing. We have now worked out the road issues with the city council that had-----
I spoke to the chief executive on the issue three weeks ago. I did not interrupt the Deputy. He has created a vision of doom and more doom. There has been huge investment and the northern distributor-----
I just want to make a point about the northern distributor road. One of the most important companies in the country and in Europe, Apple, has 6,000 people employed in the northside. We are going to facilitate the people of the northside.