People are struggling at the fuel pump and at the supermarket till. We have 17,885 people in emergency accommodation, 5,830 of whom are children. We have 1 million people on hospital waiting lists. However, the left has brought this Bill before the House. It is not concerned about a family living in a hotel room or a pensioner on a trolley but about the X on a birth certificate.
I truly believe that any adult can li…
TDs / Ken O'Flynn
Ken O'Flynn
Portrait: © Houses of the Oireachtas (Oireachtas (Open Data) PSI Licence) · source file
9,005
questions asked
Oral and written, to government departments
86,377
words spoken in the chamber
Across 393 contributions. Plus 40 contributions from the chair, not counted
295
votes recorded
Each Yes, No or Abstained in a recorded vote
421
topics asked about
Across 20 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 9,005 in all
Dec 2024Oct 2026
Contributions to debates 393 in all
Dec 2024Oct 2026
Show as a table
| Month | Questions | Contributions |
|---|---|---|
| December 2024 | 0 | 1 |
| January 2025 | 0 | 1 |
| February 2025 | 17 | 20 |
| March 2025 | 14 | 22 |
| April 2025 | 24 | 16 |
| May 2025 | 227 | 18 |
| June 2025 | 49 | 14 |
| July 2025 | 35 | 24 |
| August 2025 | 0 | 0 |
| September 2025 | 663 | 33 |
| October 2025 | 297 | 9 |
| November 2025 | 1,060 | 18 |
| December 2025 | 621 | 2 |
| January 2026 | 190 | 45 |
| February 2026 | 911 | 14 |
| March 2026 | 387 | 38 |
| April 2026 | 691 | 31 |
| May 2026 | 2,122 | 20 |
| June 2026 | 635 | 22 |
| July 2026 | 289 | 11 |
| August 2026 | 0 | 2 |
| September 2026 | 347 | 12 |
| October 2026 | 426 | 20 |
Debates they spoke in most
Plus 188 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 Cork North-Central 29 November 2024 to now
- party Independent Ireland 29 November 2024 to now
I am sure the Taoiseach will join me in welcoming James Good and Abbie Marsh in the Public Gallery, who come all the way from Ballincollig.
At 8 a.m. today, 635 patients were awaiting beds in our hospitals. Of those, 394 were on trolleys. We now have over 1 million people on hospital waiting lists. The Economic and Social Research Institute, ESRI, has stated that we need up to 7,780 more hospital beds and 1,200 more…
When the people rejected the Nice treaty and then the Lisbon treaty, they did it on a promise that the triple lock would stay - a UN mandate, a Government decision and the adoption and approval of this House. That promise won the vote of subsequent referendums afterwards. I know because I canvassed for them at the time and that was the deal, the deal this Government is trying to break tonight.
In 2013, the Taoiseach…
If the Government is secure on this then call a referendum.
I was watching the debate from my office on the monitors. It was interesting to listen to the contribution from Deputy Boyd Barrett, in particular about Apple, which is in my constituency and employs over 6,500 people. He mentioned EMC in Ballincollig, which is also in my constituency. He mentioned Dairygold and a number of companies that operate in Little Island. Again, they are all big employers that operate in my …
Philip and Kim English, Callum, aged 12, and Jayden, nine years old, were killed in their own home in Waterford over a debt that was not theirs. In Edenderry, we had a four-year-old child, Tadhg Farrell, and his grand-aunt Mary being killed. I use those names because there are a lot of people out there who would ask that we would not use those names or that we would not to mention them, in particular those gangs that…
Now there is consensus in the House and the Government is not challenging the motion, I am happy to leave it go ahead at the moment. I ask the Minister to have a read of it when he has a chance.
Others have found this issue only in the last fortnight but I have been asking about it since March. On 5 March, I asked the Tánaiste for the date on which the Government approved the dismissal of Mr. John Barrett, executive director of human resources in An Garda Síochána. That was seven months ago but I got no answer. I have written every month to various Ministers, including the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Tr…
When Detective Superintendent-----
Could we stop the clock, please?
I have now lost at least 15 seconds, so can we put it back on the clock, please?
Detective Superintendent Brian O'Reilly made a protected disclosure criticising the Garda Commissioner. The Minister sent it back to that same Commissioner and Mr. O'Reilly’s identity with it. Is the Minister aware that breaching the confidentiality of a whistleblower's identity is a criminal offence under section 14A of the Protected Disclosures Act and carries with it a two-year prison sentence?
As to the cover-up…
I thank the Minister for her reply, but she did not answer the two straight questions I asked her, which were to name the law under which she dismissed Mr. John Barrett and to give this House the date of the approval by the Cabinet. The Minister cannot name that law because the law does not exist. There is none. I will give the Minister the Civil Service Regulation Act 1956, which refers to the powers of the Governme…
How is it acceptable that for over a year a prison officer has sought in vain to have the Ministers for justice and Defence correct what he believes is a deeply misleading briefing concerning the 1988 shooting in Portlaoise prison? The prison officer, Mr. Sean O'Brien, was seriously injured when Defence Forces personnel fired live ammunition at him when he tried to prevent the escape of Patrick McVeigh, a man wanted …
People say a lot about the Minister for Finance. Some Mermbers have said he has no sense of humour. I must disagree entirely with that legend or fact. He stood up here and made an absolute joke of the entire budget. The State took in €3 billion extra in corporation tax in September alone, and both Ministers have borrowed the phrase from Leo Varadkar and the good old line that this is a budget for people who get up ea…
There is €6 billion on MetroLink and only a couple of lines mention Cork.
The Taoiseach is a Corkman whose Government has to look at the infrastructure of this country but you would swear to God, a Cheann Comhairle, that this Government does not look past the M50.
I disagree with the previous speaker. As somebody who is in a same-sex couple, I feel that there is a serious problem when it comes to inheritance tax. All that the Government has done is widen the gap. It has increased the tax band for the son or daughter by €20,000 and for the niece or nephew by €4,000. I listened to the previous speaker and his points, but we have to bear in mind that there are 300,000 couples in …
Ministers have been rolled out on the plinth and in and out of this House today, and have been on every radio show and on social media. Propaganda has been put out from Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and some of the Independents, telling us all about the tax cuts on home heating, oil and gas. This has been celebrated by Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael TDs on all of their social media channels. Fair play and well done to them but t…
Hear, hear.
The Tánaiste has said that people want certainty around the new investment accounts and that he wants more young people to get into saving. That includes the tens of thousands of ordinary people who get up early in the morning to go to work. Some of them, luckily enough, have been able to put savings into vehicles like exchange-traded funds. At present, those people are taxed on eight years of those savings, even if …
I thank the Minister of State for his response. I am not sure who wrote it, but it appears to have been a civil servant who does not understand rural Ireland and has not walked in the Minister of State's constituency or in Cork North-Central, which is mine. The Minister of State talked the big talk about energy security, yet this Government and its predecessor, in which he also served, stopped exploration for oil and…
Some of us have deeper voices than others.
Further to the revelations in today's newspapers to the effect that doctors are looking for an outright ban on scrambler bikes, despite the fact that we have new laws coming in, it has emerged that 1,100 children have attended hospital on foot of e-scooter injuries in the past five years. There have been 59 serious injuries, some involving organ displacement, have been reported. This House needs to have a debate on t…
There is a growing call for a public inquiry into the handling of protected disclosures in An Garda Síochána and I support that. However, I believe it must go much further. The concerns around protected disclosures seem to extend to the public service, An Garda Síochána, the Prison Service, the HSE, financial services and beyond. I raised this matter previously in the Dáil, and my party raised it in a Private Members…