What is being done to develop the 60-plus acres owned by IDA Ireland outside Portlaoise-----
TDs / Brian Stanley
Brian Stanley
Portrait: © Houses of the Oireachtas (Oireachtas (Open Data) PSI Licence) · source file
532
questions asked
Oral and written, to government departments
141,603
words spoken in the chamber
Across 449 contributions
403
votes recorded
Each Yes, No or Abstained in a recorded vote
156
topics asked about
Across 18 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 532 in all
Dec 2024Oct 2026
Contributions to debates 449 in all
Dec 2024Oct 2026
Show as a table
| Month | Questions | Contributions |
|---|---|---|
| December 2024 | 0 | 1 |
| January 2025 | 4 | 1 |
| February 2025 | 24 | 11 |
| March 2025 | 27 | 27 |
| April 2025 | 51 | 16 |
| May 2025 | 50 | 32 |
| June 2025 | 36 | 32 |
| July 2025 | 35 | 21 |
| August 2025 | 0 | 0 |
| September 2025 | 24 | 28 |
| October 2025 | 24 | 19 |
| November 2025 | 23 | 23 |
| December 2025 | 21 | 15 |
| January 2026 | 43 | 24 |
| February 2026 | 31 | 25 |
| March 2026 | 22 | 26 |
| April 2026 | 17 | 24 |
| May 2026 | 35 | 41 |
| June 2026 | 26 | 18 |
| July 2026 | 15 | 19 |
| August 2026 | 0 | 0 |
| September 2026 | 12 | 25 |
| October 2026 | 12 | 21 |
Debates they spoke in most
Plus 282 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 Laois 29 November 2024 to now
- party Independent 29 November 2024 to now
-----and get industry onto those sites? Will the Tánaiste take this matter up with the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment and his Department and ask them to urge IDA Ireland to act quickly in respect of this matter?
Not in Laois.
I welcome this discussion on rural policy. The biggest issues relate to housing and services in rural areas. Often, people in rural areas do not have anything. Sustainable housing is the key in this regard. For that type of housing, we need infrastructure. Those engaged in agriculture, forestry and other rural employment must continue to be allowed to build one-off houses on family land or in appropriate locations. T…
I welcome the proposals in this motion. It is long past the time that collective bargaining and trade union representation were made mandatory. It is 113 years after James Connolly and James Larkin led the lockout in this city to seek basic rights for workers. This State is completely at odds with the rest of Europe in not recognising the right to trade union representation and collective bargaining. All that is in t…
I welcome the very comprehensive motion that has been set out by Deputy O'Gorman. It is now accepted that we will miss our 2030 binding target of a 51% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. At last, Ministers are accepting that. The Government has failed to develop offshore wind energy, anaerobic digestion and hydrogeneration, and it is only starting with solar. This means just not climate and environmental damage b…
The ongoing problems with the National Ambulance Service are not being addressed. I raised the serious gaps in the ambulance service, particularly in County Laois, with the Taoiseach last year, and it is through no fault of the staff. The number of staff in the county has not increased in the past two decades, despite the explosion in its population. Five vehicles are based in the county, with just two available most…
When we compare what we have to what Scotland, which has similar population and geography, has, it has 5,000 staff while we have just over 2,500. Scotland has 1,500 vehicles while we have 620, so I think the Taoiseach accepts there is ground to be made up.
The spring economic statement that came out yesterday shows there are substantial resources there. I am not asking the Taoiseach to throw that money around like c…
I am glad the Minister and Minister of State are here. The latest figures in County Laois for the number of children with special needs and disabilities under the age of 14 is 2,302. All of us have a responsibility to ensure they get the best possible education. New classes have been announced for Laois, which is well and good and I welcome that. However, we also need physical space in schools. In St. Francis School …
What we have in Laois and Offaly in relation to services for children with special needs and autism is a black spot. There are roughly 900 children at any one time on a waiting list for assessment of needs. There is no occupational therapy, OT, in primary care for children and young adults in Laois, and the latest information I have is that there is no approval to recruit such an occupational therapist. Four OT posts…
I ask that it be followed up.
This is the most serious fuel crisis since the 1970s. I contacted the Minister's office last week and spoke to his good secretary about this, and she passed my concerns on to the Minister. The level of preparedness has been shown to be awfully poor. The response and reaction has not been what was required. There is no mechanism to deal with price gouging. The CCPC needs to be abolished or given some powers because it…
Four short months from now, the scramble for school bus places will start again. There is going to be a shortage of drivers, as has been the case over the past two years. I welcome the announcement by the Government over the Easter period that it will allow those aged up to 72 to drive eight-seater vehicles. I take that to mean that there will be eight seats plus the driver's. Some companies use such buses, particula…
We need to put in practical, sensible steps-----
-----and move two steps further.
The Government writes the cheque.
The Government's handling of the fuel price issue has been appalling. It refused to listen to the Opposition. Week after week we told it what was happening. It refused to listen to the representatives of the various sectors and various bodies. I wrote to the Tánaiste in March and told him that people I had met were running at a loss and could not continue to operate as things stood.
Instead, the Government threatens…
Instead of listening and working towards a solution with people-----
-----the Government threatened them, which was wrong-----
-----and left people out. I will be voting no confidence in the Government.
While the measures that were introduced will bring some relief, they do not go far enough. There are too many left out, including families, commuters, taxi drivers, home help staff, public health nurses and people who depend on home heating oil. The majority of rural houses in County Laois depend on home heating oil. They are facing double whammies and triple whammies. Workers and families on a medium income who do n…
The warnings from us on the Opposition benches were ignored. In the context of the protests in Laois that I attended, there were decent hard-working people who work 60 or 70 hours a week present. Truckers told me that they are losing €6,000 per month. They can only do that for a couple of months. The fact is that they could not get a week's wages and were sinking below the waterline. While the measures proposed may b…
The supposed purpose of the Bill is to speed up the delivery of infrastructure and get various different bodies to work together. I would welcome any genuine attempt to simplify planning and speed up infrastructure delivery, which takes forever and a day to get moving, to deliver it on time and at the target cost while environmental laws and regulations are not ridden roughshod over. However, the Bill has all the hal…
I raise the issue of charging points in Laois - or the absence of the charging points in most of the county. We have a situation where there are 21 publicly available charging points in the county. That is the latest information I can get. I have a map of Laois which shows the charging points run down the centre of the county. That is fine because there is the N7 and N8 but there is the N80, the R44 and many other ro…
I thank the Minister of State for his answer. The strategy being developed needs to look at the reality on the ground and at the geographic locations. You cannot have a situation where there are chargers down the middle of the county but nothing either side of it. If you travel the 28 miles to Carlow from Portlaoise, there are none. On the other side of the county, if you travel down the Slieve Bloom side of it and i…