Reforming the triple lock is the right thing to do for the men and women of the Irish Defence Forces, Irish security, Irish sovereignty and Irish neutrality. I am disappointed by the Opposition's continued false framing of this debate. This legislation very simply proposes to remove the ability of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council to prevent the Irish Government and the Dáil from deciding where an…
TDs / Maeve O'Connell
Maeve O'Connell
Portrait: © Houses of the Oireachtas (Oireachtas (Open Data) PSI Licence) · source file
551
questions asked
Oral and written, to government departments
21,976
words spoken in the chamber
Across 84 contributions
414
votes recorded
Each Yes, No or Abstained in a recorded vote
132
topics asked about
Across 19 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 551 in all
Dec 2024Oct 2026
Contributions to debates 84 in all
Dec 2024Oct 2026
Show as a table
| Month | Questions | Contributions |
|---|---|---|
| December 2024 | 0 | 0 |
| January 2025 | 0 | 0 |
| February 2025 | 9 | 7 |
| March 2025 | 16 | 1 |
| April 2025 | 62 | 4 |
| May 2025 | 109 | 10 |
| June 2025 | 95 | 1 |
| July 2025 | 54 | 10 |
| August 2025 | 0 | 0 |
| September 2025 | 27 | 0 |
| October 2025 | 21 | 5 |
| November 2025 | 15 | 11 |
| December 2025 | 11 | 3 |
| January 2026 | 31 | 6 |
| February 2026 | 18 | 6 |
| March 2026 | 11 | 2 |
| April 2026 | 10 | 0 |
| May 2026 | 15 | 4 |
| June 2026 | 16 | 4 |
| July 2026 | 24 | 2 |
| August 2026 | 0 | 0 |
| September 2026 | 5 | 1 |
| October 2026 | 2 | 7 |
Debates they spoke in most
Plus 60 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 Rathdown 29 November 2024 to now
- party Fine Gael 29 November 2024 to now
The Government and the Dáil have to approve where we deploy our peacekeepers.
With respect, I would like to raise with the Minister the issue of traffic congestion in Dublin. I am honoured to represent Dublin Rathdown. It is a wonderful constituency with national amenities locally available. We have Explorium, Airfield and Dundrum Shopping Centre. I am sure there are many of the Minister's own constituents who regularly travel to Dublin Rathdown. For example, they might be students in UCD or t…
I am delighted to hear the Minister, in her reply, talking about school traffic because we are all very aware that in two weeks time there will be a school break and the traffic volumes will just fall off a cliff. Other cities like Belfast, London, Lisbon, Ottawa and Rome all provide a dedicated school bus service. Would that be something we could look at? For many Dublin families, as the Minister said, driving is th…
I welcome the budget. It is a very good budget that will reduce the cost of childcare and enable workers to take home more of their hard-earned pay. It will also ease the cost-of-living and cost-of-energy pressures on households across the country. It is very disappointing to listen to the Opposition endlessly discuss the cost of living and then to hear their alternative proposals. The Opposition's alternative budget…
Sinn Féin and the Social Democrats proposed 23 additional new taxes.
These would inevitably result in higher instead of lower costs. The Government has recognised the pressures people are under and has taken action. This budget will ease matters for working families and small businesses. It is a significant step in the right direction. One example is the fact that a person on the average wage will be bringing home an additional €750 as a result of the budget. That does make a differen…
I want to state clearly that reforming the triple lock is the right thing for Ireland, Irish neutrality, the men and women of the Defence Forces, our peacekeepers and Irish security and sovereignty. The determination to secure Irish sovereignty is how we are all here today and how we are elected to this Chamber and represent an independent country. I am disappointed by how disingenuously the Opposition persistently f…
108. Deputy Maeve O'Connell asked the Minister for Health for an update regarding the work her Department has undertaken to improve access to care for people living with lipoedema. [47296/26]
I take this opportunity to raise awareness about lipoedema. As Deputy Sherlock said, one in 11 women or girls has it. That is one member of your camogie or football team or two in your leaving certificate class, at least. That is how significant this is. I know the Minister is a huge advocate for women's healthcare. I joined her yesterday in Tallaght hospital for the national women's strategy. We really need to see a…
I would like an update on the review of the 2001 planning guidelines for local authorities on early learning and childcare settings. It is 25 years since they were set out and a lot has changed in our society, in our childcare needs and in best practice for childcare. Will the Minister of State provide an update on the review of these guidelines?
As the Minister of State may be aware, and no doubt he is, the cost and availability of childcare are two of the biggest issues in our society. It is certainly an issue in Deputy Currie's constituency and it is very much an issue in my constituency of Dublin Rathdown as well. We have lost 64 providers out of core funding and, in Dundrum, the wonderful provider Once Upon A Time has also withdrawn from core funding. Th…
I am glad to hear about the nature of the viability of facilities because, unfortunately, one of the issues that is occurring is that as developments are put in place they provide facilities for childcare but it is often an empty shell. It is not necessarily fit for purpose for that particular community. We also have the issue, particularly in already dense urban areas where apartment developments are going in, of in…
This legislation seeks to ensure that AI transformation is guided by key principles, namely, safety, accountability and trust. We must also ensure that we extend those principles to the transformation AI is having on higher education. AI can, of course, supporting learning but it can also produce essays and other assessments. Now we have AI tools to help us detect AI-generated assessments. This has resulted in a weir…
Today, I will speak about AI in higher education and specifically the impact it is having on staff in higher education. AI is often talked about as a double-edged sword in education. There are benefits for students with personalised learning, continuous feedback and delivery of education through multi-media. Students have different learning styles and now we can deliver education in different ways to suit them. Howev…
I welcome this Bill. While it is a short and technical Bill which we are talking about today, it is also quite significant because it indicates the seriousness with which this Government is treating the need to overhaul our transport infrastructure.
I represent Dublin Rathdown and from Stepaside to Stillorgan and all the various townlands throughout my constituency, including Ballinteer, Cabinteely and Dundrum, I re…
I wish to raise with the Minister of State today the issue of urban broadband. The national broadband plan has been hugely successful. It committed to connecting more than 1 million people to fibre broadband. When it was being proposed and introduced, it received a lot of criticism for its level of ambition and cost. Several years later, though, we can see how successful it has actually been, with more than 450,000 p…
Gabhaim buíochas leis an Aire Stáit for his reply. He mentioned a couple of things in his response about market failures, which is what the national broadband plan sought to address. I would argue that what we are dealing with here in all of the areas I highlighted in Stillorgan, Foxrock and Cabinteely are market failures. They are, to use the Minister of State's own terminology, "gigabit service-challenged areas". P…
Many speakers have highlighted various gender gaps across Ireland. However, there is another gender gap I wish to highlight, namely that relating to transport. We are investing heavily in sustainable transport - nearly €600 million across the four local authorities in Dublin - to build various active travel schemes. This figure could reach €1 billion by 2030. Of course, we absolutely need to invest in sustainable tra…
In 2021, the postmaster in Mount Merrion in the Stillorgan local area closed. It is a familiar story. The postmaster was moving on, An Post advertised and nobody stepped up to take on the role. We were lucky in the community to have two other local post offices a 25- or 30-minute walk away. Last month, one of those closed. It was the same story. The postmaster moved on, it was advertised but nobody took on the role. …
101. Deputy Maeve O'Connell asked the Minister for Transport if his Department is considering encouraging transport providers to extend public transport operating hours later into the night to facilitate the night-time economy in Dublin. [14878/26]
I want to ask the Minister about how we can support the night time economy by seeing if he is engaging with both public and private transport providers to try to extend operating hours later into the night.
I thank the Minister. I appreciate the feedback on that and that the Minister is engaging with the rail operators, Transdev and Irish Rail, about trying to extend rail services. I represent Dublin Rathdown, which is a constituency adjacent to the city centre constituencies. An awful lot of my constituents raise the point with me all the time that they would go into town more often if they knew that they could get hom…
I listened to the Minister talk about the constraints in the system. It would be remiss of me not to refer to some of the communications I have received this week about our wider transportation service. Hannah was in touch with me about the No. 11 bus route in Clonskeagh. Three full buses went past her on one day, and this has happened repeatedly. She has spent hundreds of euro on taxis. Three buses went past Catheri…
Hear, hear.