I am very glad we are having this debate this evening. I pay tribute to Deputy Rice and, indeed, all our fellow members of the health committee in quite an unorthodox way of keeping the heat and light on this issue. There are ultimately a very small number of families affected by this but the impact of the lack of a comprehensive legislative framework has a profound impact on their lives. They are facing into yet ano…
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
The Labour Party welcomes and supports this Bill to ban single-use vapes. We also want to make it clear that this is one small part of an overall jigsaw that is required in a public health and environmental response to vaping.
There has been an explosion in the number of people vaping over the past decade. There are figures reporting 7% of adults and 16% of 15- to 16-year-olds are currently vaping. The Lancet back i…
I thank Sinn Féin for bringing forward this motion. I stand here frustrated that we are having this conversation at all. We should be spending time talking about improvements to the health service but instead we are talking about a service that is effectively going backwards. The reality is that when we were talking about the community pharmacy agreement in October in this House, I raised issues about phased dispensi…
The poet, Michael Hartnett, has a special place in my heart, not only because of his poetry but because his maternal home place in Camas, outside Raheenagh, is a part of the world that I know very well. When the Minister was launching the Éigse Michael Hartnett Literary and Arts Festival earlier this year, he acknowledged that there is a need for capital funding for arts in this country. The Limerick Leader reported …
Answer the question, please. The Minister is so dismissive.
The Department has been approached. There was a letter.
I am working on the basis of what was said to The Complex.
I think this is the third time this week that I have risen to talk about support for arts and cultural spaces, not only here in Dublin but across the country. Since I came into the Houses five years ago, and I am sure Deputy Boyd Barrett is the exact same, I have spoken out about the closure of arts spaces and studios, particularly here in Dublin, because the reality is that culture cannot compete with capitalism. We…
What screams back at me from this reply from the Department is that there are no ideas about how to support and secure the future of a place such as The Complex. There is a fobbing off or passing the buck to the local authority. A capital scheme was referenced in the reply. Anybody who has any notion about any of our communities across the country would know that €300,000 was totally insufficient to allow any local a…
I very much thank Deputy Cullinane and Sinn Féin for bringing forward this very important Bill. I express real disappointment that the Government is opposing this legislation. We have to be honest here. As recently as September, the Secretary General of the Department of Health talked about the Department remaining committed to achieving the Sláintecare targets of ten weeks for outpatient appointments and 12 weeks fo…
My question is on that same topic because I understand the Minister attended two meetings with both members of the board and management of the Complex, along with the former Minister, Paschal Donohoe, over the past number of months. He is obviously very familiar with the situation. The Complex's ask is very simple, in that it has secured funding from DCC and it has a loan but the third part of the jigsaw is securing …
I suspect I will be raising a lot of the issues Deputy Whitmore raised. I am coming to this from a position of enormous frustration because of the lack of co-ordination and planning within the Department of education in tandem with the Department of Health over many years. The parent notify system, in theory, is great. I know the date was, of course, brought forward this year to allow both Departments to be able to p…
I thank the Minister of State for that. We all appreciate the expansion in the number of places but the reality is that there was a time when Ministers here would get up and say that one did not need an assessment of need and that the education system did not need a diagnosis to provide additional support. Of course, that is the case for special schools but what we are seeing now is a potential deepening inequality b…
I move:
That Dáil Éireann:
recalls that it is now a decade since the passage of the Gender Recognition Act 2015;
notes that:
— trans healthcare in Ireland is consistently ranked as the worst in Europe, with over 2,000 people on a waiting list for healthcare;
— stories from transgender people constantly highlight how Ireland's flawed healthcare system is not working, with invasive and insensitive scrutiny from th…
This is disgusting.
The Deputy has time to speak to the motion.
The Deputy has time to speak to the motion.
Great.
What is he on about?
Deputy, we just want to hear-----
In January 2024, the Taoiseach's Government committed to a public information campaign on the benefits of immigration. Why has this not happened? Has that plan now been abandoned? I heard the Taoiseach's comments earlier. The reality is that some migrants are more welcome than others, judging by the changes to the family reunification system last week. Migrants are the backbone of many sectors in our economy and yet …
Yes, but you promised-----
Go raibh maith agat a Chathaoirligh. I thank the Minister of State for taking this question. We had to postpone to tonight so he could be in the Chamber to take this. My question relates to commercial vehicle roadworthiness testing centre operators and tester regulations. I very much support improvement and adherence to the highest standards regarding commercial vehicle testing. I also very much support the concept o…
I hear a very clear admission by the Department that the directive does not set out specific criteria regarding a drive-through lane. The business I am talking about serves Dublin's docklands. Businesses from Tipperary and other parts of the country bring their vans to be tested there because they are up in the docklands early in the morning and can get those vans tested during the day. It does not just affect compan…
We move to the final Topical Issue tonight and it gives me great pleasure to be in the Chair as an issue relating to my home village is being discussed.