Families are struggling, children are left without places. What is the Taoiseach's response now? Thank you, a Cheann Comhairle.
TDs / Mary Lou McDonald
Mary Lou McDonald
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193
questions asked
Oral and written, to government departments
141,893
words spoken in the chamber
Across 1,424 contributions
172
votes recorded
Each Yes, No or Abstained in a recorded vote
56
topics asked about
Across 12 departments
From the Dáil chamber only: committee meetings are not in this archive.
What they ask about
The subject headings the Oireachtas filed their questions under.
Who they ask
The departments their questions were addressed to.
Month by month
Low months are usually recesses, when the Dáil does not sit. The archive runs to 22 October 2026.
Questions asked 193 in all
Dec 2024Oct 2026
Contributions to debates 1,424 in all
Dec 2024Oct 2026
Show as a table
| Month | Questions | Contributions |
|---|---|---|
| December 2024 | 0 | 10 |
| January 2025 | 0 | 17 |
| February 2025 | 15 | 76 |
| March 2025 | 22 | 80 |
| April 2025 | 22 | 73 |
| May 2025 | 19 | 157 |
| June 2025 | 14 | 113 |
| July 2025 | 4 | 111 |
| August 2025 | 0 | 0 |
| September 2025 | 12 | 47 |
| October 2025 | 9 | 85 |
| November 2025 | 4 | 71 |
| December 2025 | 1 | 25 |
| January 2026 | 13 | 59 |
| February 2026 | 22 | 92 |
| March 2026 | 3 | 53 |
| April 2026 | 10 | 84 |
| May 2026 | 3 | 88 |
| June 2026 | 4 | 68 |
| July 2026 | 1 | 38 |
| August 2026 | 0 | 2 |
| September 2026 | 5 | 31 |
| October 2026 | 10 | 44 |
Debates they spoke in most
Plus 1,197 contributions in the regular slots, such as Leaders' Questions and Priority Questions. Speech from the chair is not counted.
Asked about similar topics
Worked out by computer from the subject headings of each TD's questions, giving more weight to headings few TDs use. It shows shared subjects, not shared views.
Party, constituency and offices
- constituency Dublin Central 29 November 2024 to now
- party Sinn Féin 29 November 2024 to now
That is what global means.
Obviously I have hit a bit of a nerve there with the Taoiseach. Maybe it is just me, but I do not think a chair of Bord Bia whose company was importing Brazilian beef stands on credible ground. That is a view that I hold and I know that will be held by many farmers and people beyond that.
On the childcare issue, the Government is not serious about providing the right number of places. There are 50,000 children now w…
Finally, he has done nothing on core funding. He had a specific promise in the programme for Government to review core funding, and to raise it, but there was not a gíog from him.
The Taoiseach is not serious about childcare. He is quite happy to let working families struggle and to have children left behind.
Some 1,000 providers have closed. Did the Taoiseach miss that?
You might stop the clock and put it back to-----
Thank you. I am obliged.
The State not alone failed Garda Margaret Loftus; it actively protected her abuser, Garda Trevor Bolger. Margaret was subjected not alone to a prolonged, sustained and violent assault, as has been commented on in the public domain, but also to a sustained campaign of threat, intimidation and menace by Trevor Bolger. Yet, this man was promoted, given a firearm, given more responsibility and protected. This raises the …
I want to tell the Taoiseach about the final hours of Stephen Lavelle's life, a man from Erris in north Mayo. On the night of Saturday, 10 January, he became gravely ill shortly after arriving at the pub in Binghamstown. An ambulance was called at 10.25 p.m. but despite several follow-up calls, no ambulance arrived. A doctor was called and by the time they arrived, Stephen's family were growing more and more distress…
I have given the Taoiseach the circumstances surrounding Stephen's death.
My colleague Deputy Conway-Walsh has written to the Minister for Health setting it out. I cannot imagine the fear that must have been felt in that car that night. Imagine, on dark country roads, your father crying out in pain, your husband fighting for his life and knowing still how far away you are from the hospital. That is the cost of the f…
A man died.
I want to return to the issue of carers, thousands of whom have received letters telling them that they may owe tax. This is a mess of the Government's making. Carers are not tax dodgers. They are people who care for others and who save the State a fortune. Some of them may work part-time just to make sure they can make ends meet because carers experience the cost-of-living crisis just like everyone else. Now, out of…
But they are after getting a letter telling them they have a tax bill. The Taoiseach should sort that out.
9. Deputy Mary Lou McDonald asked the Taoiseach for an update on the implementation of the Dublin city task force report. [74324/25]
I put to the Taoiseach that the actions on the ground in the inner city in particular starkly contradict the aspirations of the task force plan. I will give two examples. There task force has an aspiration to expand artistic spaces and develop new cultural hubs, yet in Smithfield in the north-west inner city, The Complex, a critical hub and piece of community and artistic infrastructure, has been shut down. Will he e…
The lost facilities.
That is not a good enough answer.
I raised Portland Row as well.
I want to raise a very alarming and distressing case. It is the case of a woman from the west of Ireland left to wait six weeks to start her chemotherapy. At the end of November last, this mother of two young children received the devastating news that she had breast cancer, the same cancer her mother had died of in her 40s. To get a diagnosis of cancer is traumatic enough but to be told you have the same cancer that…
The issue is that it is not a specific or isolated incident. I would like to know the extent of this. I know about the case of this woman in particular. I have given the details of it. Dr. Michael McCarthy, who is president of the Irish Society of Medical Oncology, during the summer said:
The reality in Galway is that patients are now typically [and I emphasise "typically"] waiting seven to eight weeks for their fir…
-----and to know exactly how widespread this experience is and, more important, what the Government will do to fix this urgently.
That is for referrals.
No.
I can certainly do that.