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TDs / Neale Richmond
Neale Richmond
Minister of State at the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade
Portrait: © Houses of the Oireachtas (Oireachtas (Open Data) PSI Licence) · source file
0
questions asked
Oral and written, to government departments
100,288
words spoken in the chamber
97,626 as a minister, 2,662 as a TD
278
votes recorded
Each Yes, No or Abstained in a recorded vote
From the Dáil chamber only: committee meetings are not in this archive.
The record holds no parliamentary questions from them in this Dáil.
Month by month
Low months are usually recesses, when the Dáil does not sit. The archive runs to 22 October 2026.
Contributions to debates 265 in all
Dec 2024Oct 2026
Show as a table
| Month | Contributions |
|---|---|
| December 2024 | 0 |
| January 2025 | 0 |
| February 2025 | 8 |
| March 2025 | 46 |
| April 2025 | 4 |
| May 2025 | 4 |
| June 2025 | 8 |
| July 2025 | 9 |
| August 2025 | 0 |
| September 2025 | 1 |
| October 2025 | 13 |
| November 2025 | 33 |
| December 2025 | 2 |
| January 2026 | 14 |
| February 2026 | 35 |
| March 2026 | 4 |
| April 2026 | 24 |
| May 2026 | 9 |
| June 2026 | 11 |
| July 2026 | 28 |
| August 2026 | 0 |
| September 2026 | 11 |
| October 2026 | 1 |
Debates they spoke in most
Plus 161 contributions in the regular slots, such as Leaders' Questions and Priority Questions. Speech from the chair is not counted.
Party, constituency and offices
- constituency Dublin Rathdown 29 November 2024 to now
- party Fine Gael 29 November 2024 to now
- office Minister of State at the Department of Foreign Affairs 29 January 2025 to 25 March 2025
- office Minister of State at the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade 26 March 2025 to now
On 31 October 2025, the United Nations Security Council adopted Resolution 2797, extending the mandate of the UN Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara, MINURSO, for one year until 31 October 2026. Ireland is not currently a member of the United Nations Security Council but has taken note of Resolution 2797. Ireland's position on Western Sahara has been and continues to be guided by the aim of achieving a just …
I would like to pick the Deputy up on that last point because I think in all our discussions we always try to find areas of agreement, even when there are certain areas of disagreement on technical matters. This is one area that is really concerning for us. We have a very clear process in place. I appreciate the Deputy's thoughts that it is going far too slow and that in some persons' opinions it is not fully engaged…
Yes, the progress towards a referendum or any process of self-determination has been painfully slow but it is not straightforward simply to engage with the people because there are very clearly conflicting opinions here and, as a country outside that seeks to be supportive crucially of what this really is, it is a peace process. What went before 1991 was a brutal conflict that cost many lives, and what has come after…
I am very grateful to the Deputy for raising this. I acknowledge the consistent effort by both Deputies Ó Laoghaire and Smith to raise this in a constructive manner. The conflict in Sudan, which has continued for over three years, is causing devastating levels of hunger and displacement. This year, two out of every three people in Sudan are in need of humanitarian assistance. We are seriously concerned by the escalat…
Over the past three years, Ireland has been consistent at a Foreign Affairs Council level, be it the full Council, the development formation in which I sit, or the defence formation, in making sure Sudan is on the agenda and that does not slip from the focus of European partners. What is happening in Sudan will end up on our doorstep in due course, when we see mass movement of people, the real impact on the wider pol…
The short answer is "Yes" but I will give a little more detail to the context of how we do that. In recent years, Ireland's humanitarian support has included funding to the UN's Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, OCHA, country-based pooled fund, the UN population fund and the International Rescue Committee to target people most in need, particularly women and girls for aforementioned reasons. OCHA's…
We have.
I move:
That, notwithstanding anything in the Order of the Dáil of 5th February, 2025, or in the Order of the Dáil of 28th April, 2026, setting out the rota in which Questions to members of the Government are to be asked, Questions for oral answer following those next set down to the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage shall be set down to Ministers in the following temporary sequence, without any ch…
I am grateful to the Deputies who contributed to this important annual debate. We take time in the busy Dáil schedule every year ahead of Europe Day, on 9 May, to reflect on contemporary historical and future issues facing the European Union and the wider European project.
I will address three points in the Chamber today. I will go into a little bit of detail about our upcoming Presidency of the rotating Council of …
It is not opposed.
I am very grateful to Deputy Ó Laoghaire for raising this very pertinent issue in relation to Owenabue Educate Together National School in Carrigaline, County Cork. The Deputy is right that he could be reading this about at least seven different schools in my constituency. I have, therefore, great empathy for the case the Deputy raised and for the entire school community.
As alluded to, this school building project …
That is a perfectly valid request. I advise having a deputation meeting and writing a formal letter to the Department of education on foot of this Topical Issue debate. The Deputy has been in this House longer than I have, and he and I know that Topical Issue debates are only a step in the process by which constituency TDs provide good advocacy. I will not insult the Deputy by giving out the departmental lines that t…
I thank Deputy Moynihan for raising this pertinent issue, which is one that resonates with many of us in the House in many regards. I am replying on behalf of the Minister.
It is the policy of the Department of Education and Youth, in accordance with the principles of inclusive education, that students with additional learning needs are supported in mainstream classes, along with their peers, with additional support…
I appreciate the Deputy's supplementary question and, where relevant, will bring it forward to the relevant line Minister. He raised a few key issues that are absolutely understandable, but go to the nub of the complexity of providing special education that is sometimes blanket and misses certain aspects of a child's development in education or what their need or want is. It is hard to put that into a straight column…
I thank Deputy O'Hara for raising this important issue and join him in celebrating the 30th anniversary of Gort Community School's foundation. As the Deputy will be aware, the school was approved to enter the Department's pipeline for a project under the additional school accommodation scheme. The project will provide 19 general classrooms, seven SET rooms, two meeting rooms, one deputy principal's office, three clas…
Once again, I thank the Deputy for giving me the opportunity to provide, on behalf of the Minister for education, an update to the House regarding the accommodation at Gort Community School. The Department is committed to ensuring appropriate accommodation is available for all school pupils and will, in the wider context outlined, ensure that each school project on the school building programme is subject to the due …
I thank the Deputy for raising this issue. This week there has been a lot of focus, correctly, on the areas raised by Deputy O'Rourke. Delivering an education system that is of the highest quality and where every child and young person feels valued and is actively supported and nurtured to reach his or her full potential is a key priority for the Government and the Minister. In that regard, supporting the education o…
I thank the Deputy for raising this important matter. I want to underline, without any degree of uncertainty, that the Government, just like everyone else in the House, is absolutely committed to increasing the number of Traveller and Roma children who complete primary and secondary education. The vision of the Traveller and Roma education strategy is that we want a high-quality, inclusive education system that is op…
I am very grateful to my dear friend, Deputy Burke, for raising this matter, as is the relevant Minister. Public libraries are at the heart of all our communities. The Deputy and I were in the Chamber when our former colleague, Paschal Donohoe, made that very clear appeal as part of his closing salvo to this House. Public libraries are multi-purpose social, cultural and educational spaces for the whole community to e…
While I agree with the Deputy it was a shame that the Mayfield library could not be considered in the most recent tranche, I do think the Department's response and the developments from a planning point of view and more widely in the local community in that part of County Cork illustrate the need and merit for the library to be considered in the next round. I have no doubt the next time a funding round becomes availa…
I am grateful to the Deputy for raising this issue, one that I have absolute familiarity with having previously been a Minister of State in the Department with responsibility for retail during a period when we had 16.9% grocery inflation on the back of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which massively increased food and energy prices across western Europe. Global inflation will see grocery prices increase. At the time…
To be honest, I do not necessarily accept that. Perhaps this is a communications issue. As the Deputy said, the structures are there. The CCPC enforces competition and consumer protection law, and the CSO independently collects and publishes official price data through the consumer price index. This means two bodies are doing the key things the Deputy is asking for.
The CCPC is not the price monitoring or price regu…
I am very grateful to the Deputy for raising this issue. I think Richmond Village is a brilliant name. There should be more of them, needless to say.
More pertinently and directly to the Deputy's point, on behalf of the Minister, we all know why the LDA was set up and the ambition it has. The Deputy is right that it is really ramping up. We can see that in sod turnings, on one hand, such as in Richmond Village, and in site clearings, such as at the former Central Mental Hospital, or Dundrum Central as we know it, but also, crucially, in people moving into homes, a…