I move amendment No. 9:
In page 48, to delete lines 28 to 38, in page 49 to delete lines 1 to 41, and in page 50, to delete lines 1 to 38.
This amendment follows directly from the previous point. I will elaborate. This amendment deletes the section. The Broadcasting Act contains a figure for the amount of revenue that has to go to the independent account. I think the relevant figure is €40 million. That amount woul…
TDs / Richard Boyd Barrett
Richard Boyd Barrett
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1,583
questions asked
Oral and written, to government departments
153,844
words spoken in the chamber
Across 941 contributions
216
votes recorded
Each Yes, No or Abstained in a recorded vote
278
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 1,583 in all
Dec 2024Oct 2026
Contributions to debates 941 in all
Dec 2024Oct 2026
Show as a table
| Month | Questions | Contributions |
|---|---|---|
| December 2024 | 0 | 1 |
| January 2025 | 12 | 11 |
| February 2025 | 65 | 141 |
| March 2025 | 31 | 67 |
| April 2025 | 100 | 31 |
| May 2025 | 109 | 2 |
| June 2025 | 97 | 0 |
| July 2025 | 127 | 0 |
| August 2025 | 0 | 0 |
| September 2025 | 56 | 0 |
| October 2025 | 50 | 0 |
| November 2025 | 82 | 62 |
| December 2025 | 71 | 54 |
| January 2026 | 107 | 95 |
| February 2026 | 125 | 83 |
| March 2026 | 98 | 48 |
| April 2026 | 57 | 62 |
| May 2026 | 58 | 114 |
| June 2026 | 73 | 53 |
| July 2026 | 131 | 12 |
| August 2026 | 0 | 2 |
| September 2026 | 97 | 62 |
| October 2026 | 37 | 41 |
Debates they spoke in most
Plus 666 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 Dún Laoghaire 29 November 2024 to now
- party People Before Profit-Solidarity 29 November 2024 to now
Why does the Government have such contempt for workers, in particular for workers who keep our public services going? There was a €20 million cut to public service broadcasting - to RTÉ - because the Government wants more jobs cut in RTÉ, but it had no problem giving €118 million to the tech bros and the social media companies in a tax break - six times as much. It gives it to the billionaires but not to the workers.…
It is not ahead of inflation.
It is not in the Government's budget but it is in ours.
There is nothing in this budget that would do anything to change the minds of workers in this country who are planning to go out on strike on 14 October and 21 October. Any reasonable look at it would say it is a good reason to get organised and mobilise for those public sector strikes because the Government has not responded to the legitimate demands and needs of working people, be they public sector or private sect…
The Government kept saying this would be a budget for workers. When the detail of this is pored over by workers, there is no good reason for them not to continue with their plans to go on strike on 14 and 21 October. In fact, there is every good reason for them to continue with their plans to take strike action because this Government has given them less than nothing in this budget when you look at how the tax change…
Yes, there are six minutes.
I was waiting for the clock to show six minutes, which was allocated.
It is particularly outrageous that the Government is chasing ever-increasing house prices and, indeed, encouraging ever-increasing house prices with public money when that money could be used in the context of actual measures to deliver affordable housing. As I said earlier and as was just alluded to, this contrasts sharply with what has happened with the starter home scheme in the budget whereby the Government has c…
It is important to correct the record. Deputy Healy-Rae said multinational corporations deliver us the most tax revenue. I will give him the 2023 figures. We can update them because the figures are a bit delayed. There were 3.3 million PAYE workers in 2023. Their annual pay between them was €130 billion, but they paid €32.9 billion in tax. On average, that was about 25% of their gross pay.
There were 170,000 employe…
I was a smoker for many years. I am glad to say I am off them. It is very important that we discourage young people from smoking, but I have to be honest and say I do not think adding a bill of €350 to people who are addicted over the course of the year is really the answer. We often hit older people, those on low incomes and those who are being punished for having an addition. It would be better if they did not have…
2. Deputy Richard Boyd Barrett asked the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade further to reports from a recent cross-party delegation of seven Oireachtas Members to the trial of an Irish citizen in Germany, where delegates observed serious procedural issues, and further to her personal assurances that she would be monitoring, keeping a very close eye and providing direct and fair oversight and full sight of the tri…
Daniel Tatlow-Devally has been locked up for 23 hours a day in a German prison for 13 months, having taken part in a protest, in which no human being was hurt, against an arms manufacturer providing weapons to Israel to commit its crimes. His family, myself and a cross-party delegation who went over in July to witness the trial believe he is not getting a fair trial and we have repeatedly asked the Minister to send o…
In recent correspondence about this case, the Minister wrote that her Department was satisfied that Daniel was being treated equally before the law compared with any German citizen in his situation. I went to the court in Stammheim. It is reserved for terrorists and organised criminals. Daniel is neither and nobody is suggesting he is, so why is he in that court? No other German citizen in that situation would be in …
For a start, the Minister should just send observers. Frankly, I would like her to go further. The defendants are kept in glass cages. When we were there, security people were blocking us from just seeing through the glass. They cannot communicate properly with their legal team during the trial. They have to depend on interpretation, which means they cannot hear the actual proceedings. They are being treated as if th…
I thank Deputy Hearne for bringing forward this Bill, which we are very happy to support. It will be interesting to see because the indications are that the Government is not going to support it. Deputy Ó Broin had similar Bills in the previous Dáil. I had a Bill on the right to housing in 2021 that amazingly passed.
I think that was a mistake - the Government forgot to call a vote, so we got the right to housing re…
I thank the Social Democrats for bringing forward this motion and we are happy to support it. I have to be honest and say we would go a little bit further with our windfall tax. We think 50% of the profits of these companies should be taxed and this could raise €1.1 billion, which would go a hell of a long way, along with a levy on the data centres to make them pay the same electricity prices ordinary householders. I…
Yesterday, the Taoiseach said he was not going to intervene in the Garvaghy Road-Drumcree stand-off, which is potentially set to escalate again this weekend. He dismissed suggestions that he should call on the British Government, the British Secretary of State for Northern Ireland and, indeed, the PSNI to stop a triumphalist sectarian Orange Order march going down the Garvaghy Road. I ask him to reconsider that non-i…
The scale of horror visited on the Palestinians certainly is of a different order. I do not have time to go into the history but saying there is no connection means the Taoiseach needs to look back at the history. After subjugating people in Ireland, the leaders of the Black and Tans and the Auxiliaries were sent straight to Palestine. In 1936, the Governor General of Jerusalem, when asked why he was backing Zionism,…
I am just asking a question.
Do I need to move all of the amendments?
I move amendment No.1:
In page 5, between lines 32 and 33, to insert the following:
“(3) A consultancy grant shall not be made for the engagement of consultants to provide advice or studies in respect of any activity of military relevance.”
There are a series of amendments from myself and Deputy Gibney in this area. On the Second Stage debate, the Minister said that this Bill has no implications for our neutrality…
The Minister of State will have a more difficult time explaining the deletion of section 8. Let us take him at face value and say that these things are not connected. What, then, is the problem with our amendments? If the Government is talking about giving the IDA powers, for example, to set up DACs for purely benign purposes that have nothing to do with the arms industry or the military sector, why would it have a p…
Okay. The arguments have been made. I repeat that while the relevant sections we are trying to amend here, sections 4 and 5, do not explicitly refer to the arms industry and refer to relatively benign uses, we are asking for an assurance - the next section is the reason it throws doubt on these sections, and the Minister of State's decision to move out section 8 - as it does refer to, for example, consultancy grants …
I move amendment No. 3:
In page 6, between lines 26 and 27, to insert the following:
“(c) not make loans to, invest monies in and sell, transfer, lease or otherwise dispose of land at its disposal to, a relevant company which engages in or promotes any activity of military relevance.”.