I am conscious the Minister of State relaying the reply on behalf of the Minister for justice. Any of us not living in a situation where a family member has a catastrophic injury have no real insight but from the families I have met and families I am aware of, the stress and burden they have to endure day in, day out, and the worry of not being able to provide that care are enormous. The toll it takes on families is …
TDs / Marie Sherlock
Marie Sherlock
Portrait: © Houses of the Oireachtas (Oireachtas (Open Data) PSI Licence) · source file
1,206
questions asked
Oral and written, to government departments
117,003
words spoken in the chamber
Across 307 contributions. Plus 32 contributions from the chair, not counted
378
votes recorded
Each Yes, No or Abstained in a recorded vote
186
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 1,206 in all
Dec 2024Oct 2026
Contributions to debates 307 in all
Dec 2024Oct 2026
Show as a table
| Month | Questions | Contributions |
|---|---|---|
| December 2024 | 0 | 0 |
| January 2025 | 11 | 0 |
| February 2025 | 77 | 13 |
| March 2025 | 92 | 19 |
| April 2025 | 72 | 13 |
| May 2025 | 98 | 28 |
| June 2025 | 79 | 18 |
| July 2025 | 44 | 25 |
| August 2025 | 0 | 0 |
| September 2025 | 71 | 6 |
| October 2025 | 61 | 27 |
| November 2025 | 70 | 13 |
| December 2025 | 33 | 22 |
| January 2026 | 120 | 11 |
| February 2026 | 95 | 14 |
| March 2026 | 36 | 15 |
| April 2026 | 72 | 20 |
| May 2026 | 40 | 10 |
| June 2026 | 41 | 9 |
| July 2026 | 18 | 25 |
| August 2026 | 0 | 0 |
| September 2026 | 56 | 3 |
| October 2026 | 20 | 16 |
Debates they spoke in most
Plus 186 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 Labour Party 29 November 2024 to now
Thank you, Taoiseach.
Yes.
I will refrain from abusing my position to appeal to the Taoiseach to work on Carrignavar.
With the agreement of the House, I propose that each Member be allocated two minutes each. Is that agreed?
Yes. We can have 1 minute, 45 seconds each.
I too must raise the report from Children's Health Ireland, CHI, today. There are one to two e-scooter-related incidents presenting to emergency departments every single day, with a 50% increase in traumatic brain injuries over the past 12 months. As we rise today, I have to ask how in all conscience we can walk away from here, knowing that every day for the next eight weeks, a child is going to be injured due to an …
I move: “That the Bill be now read a Second Time.”
We in the Labour Party passionately believe that we need to have a serious overhaul of how waste is collected and regulated across every county in this country. In that context, I am very proud to see our Labour Party Bill proceed to Second Stage in the Dáil today. The Bill is the Waste Management (Single Household Waste Collection Service) Bill 2026. This is an iss…
In the spirit of solidarity, as a proud Corkonian who is very proud to now call Dublin home, I extend my support to Mayo as well. They might just do it this time round. I thank all those who came to support the Bill today, including Deputies Ivana Bacik, Mark Ward, Gary Gannon, Paul McAuliffe and Roderic O'Gorman. It is very clear that while we may all have a slight difference in emphasis about what we want to see, t…
I want to thank my colleague, Deputy Kenny, for bringing forward this really important motion and welcome the support across the Opposition. He does appear to be getting to some Deputies in Sinn Féin.
No one wants to be talking about going back to school but the back-to-education allowance has landed this week and many parents are having to deal with an existing cost-of-living crisis. It beggars belief that after ye…
I move amendment No. 1:
In page 3, between lines 13 and 14, to insert the following:
“(a) by the insertion of the following subsection after subsection (1):
“(1A) The Minister shall, not later than 12 months after the coming into operation of this subsection, and every year thereafter, prepare and lay before each House of the Oireachtas a report on progress towards making contraception services available without c…
I thank the Minister. I feel very strongly that in bringing forward amendment No. 2, and I have listened carefully to the Minister's response, that judgment should not be passed on why a 16-year-old girl might present to a pharmacy seeking contraception. It would be very worrying if the message were to go out that we are trying to control or dissuade behaviours. The history of our State has been trying to control and…
I move amendment No. 2:
In page 3, between lines 17 and 18, to insert the following:
“(b) in subsection (6), by the substitution of “16 years” for “17 years”,”.
88. Deputy Marie Sherlock asked the Minister for Health to commit to setting out a written detailed response and implementation plan to each of the 161 recommendations of the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Drugs Use policy reform. [52314/26]
As the Minister of State knows, the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Drugs Use published a report two weeks ago. It is a detailed report, with 161 detailed recommendations set out over 134 pages. I have to convey to the Minister of State the deep dismay and disappointment caused by her comments in response to the report some 24 hours after its publication.
Will the Department of Health issue a detailed response to each…
I thank the Minister of State. That is certainly very welcome. I say genuinely to the Minister of State and the senior Minister in the Department that there is a real opportunity to show leadership and to prove their credentials by getting things done with regard to this particular issue. Our committee heard hundreds of hours of evidence from 82 witnesses since April last year. It was an incredibly extensive look at …
That to me is wrong. The reality is the issues are way too serious for that. There were 343 drug-induced deaths in our country in 2022. That is the latest available data. Over 80% of those in our prisons have addiction. Look at our communities. We need to change how we do things on drugs. To be honest, the Minister of State rejecting one of the recommendations less than 24 hours after publication is frankly not good …
A health referral and health diversion scheme was promised back in 2017, so we are almost ten years waiting for that. The reality is the Minister of State is fundamentally misunderstanding why we have recommended decriminalisation. It is not an end in itself. Depenalisation is to ensure that we breakdown the stigma and shame of addiction in this country. It is to ensure that people can access services and that we end…
94. Deputy Marie Sherlock asked the Minister for Health the action she is taking to address the dearth of nursing home beds and increase the number of step-down facilities in response to the crisis in delayed transfers of care in our acute hospital system; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [52270/26]
My question relates to delayed transfers of care and nursing home capacity. I understand that yesterday marked the highest number of delayed transfers of care across our acute hospitals in the year to date, with 555 patients who should have been discharged and were not. This marks 86 continuous days of over 500 delayed transfers of care in our hospitals. For the first four months of this year, almost 50% of those wai…
The average waiting time in DTOC is 24.8 days across all acute hospitals and in the midlands and north-east Dublin it is more than 30 days. This is a huge cause for alarm in terms of risk to the patients themselves and their prospects of recovery but also the cost to the hospital. We know that nursing home demand is the biggest driver of this, with more than 1,500 people waiting for a nursing home space, but I have t…
Obviously, there are a whole range of issues as to why people do not leave hospital. Almost 70% of the cases relate to a need for residential care or complex care such as dementia. The big issue is the cost. We know the HSE is running a significant deficit at the moment. It will not even make the savings it is supposed to make at the end of this year. We know the cost of an acute daybed is about €1,300, which is almo…
99. Deputy Marie Sherlock asked the Minister for Health the reason the national lipoedema working group is proposing to exclude surgical intervention from its guidelines on the management of lipoedema; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [52269/26]
My question concerns lipoedema. It is a condition experienced by an estimated 11% of women in this country. We understand a working group was set up in 2023 and was due to report in the second quarter of this year. We have not seen it yet. When will we see that report? I raise significant concern about the outcome of the report, in that the HSE has indicated it relates only to diagnosis and non-surgical management, w…
Many in the medical community with expertise in this area are of the view that specialised sparing liposuction surgery - there is big distinction from other types of cosmetic liposuction - is the only intervention that can directly address the pathological adipose tissue issues. Many women have to travel to Cyprus and other countries to access those surgical interventions. Serious consideration has to be given to tha…