To be clear, as one Deputy said, there is an element of repetition. That is what happened on Committee Stage when there was no time limit whatsoever and yet, quite frankly, the debate ran out of steam. This is a Bill that is not even two pages long in total. It is a very short piece of legislation. It is a very net point. We have not seen much debate on the individual amendments tonight to get through them. We have h…
TDs / Thomas Byrne
Thomas Byrne
Minister of State at the Department of the Taoiseach, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and at the Department of Defence
Portrait: © Houses of the Oireachtas (Oireachtas (Open Data) PSI Licence) · source file
12
questions asked
Oral and written, to government departments
76,972
words spoken in the chamber
68,043 as a minister, 8,929 as a TD
268
votes recorded
Each Yes, No or Abstained in a recorded vote
11
topics asked about
Across 6 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 12 in all
Dec 2024Oct 2026
Contributions to debates 314 in all
Dec 2024Oct 2026
Show as a table
| Month | Questions | Contributions |
|---|---|---|
| December 2024 | 0 | 0 |
| January 2025 | 0 | 0 |
| February 2025 | 4 | 7 |
| March 2025 | 3 | 15 |
| April 2025 | 0 | 6 |
| May 2025 | 4 | 27 |
| June 2025 | 0 | 0 |
| July 2025 | 1 | 36 |
| August 2025 | 0 | 0 |
| September 2025 | 0 | 5 |
| October 2025 | 0 | 2 |
| November 2025 | 0 | 20 |
| December 2025 | 0 | 0 |
| January 2026 | 0 | 53 |
| February 2026 | 0 | 12 |
| March 2026 | 0 | 4 |
| April 2026 | 0 | 37 |
| May 2026 | 0 | 19 |
| June 2026 | 0 | 20 |
| July 2026 | 0 | 11 |
| August 2026 | 0 | 0 |
| September 2026 | 0 | 0 |
| October 2026 | 0 | 40 |
Debates they spoke in most
Plus 113 contributions in the regular slots, such as Leaders' Questions and Priority Questions. Speech from the chair is not counted.
Asked about similar topics
Not enough questions on record to compare.
Party, constituency and offices
- constituency Meath East 29 November 2024 to now
- party Fianna Fáil 29 November 2024 to now
- office Minister of State at the Department of the Taoiseach, the Department of Foreign Affairs and at the Department of Defence 29 January 2025 to 25 March 2025
- office Minister of State at the Department of the Taoiseach, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and at the Department of Defence 26 March 2025 to now
Sé sheachtain ó shin, dhúisigh muid go léir san Eoraip agus trasna an domhain le radharc nua is drámata de bhuamaí agus cogadh sa Mheánoirthear. Dá bharr seo, tá taithí ag gach tír san Eoraip le méadú ar phraghas an ola mar aon le ganntanas. Baineann sé seo le gach duine. Tá sé seo ag tarlú na mílte míle ón tír seo, ach tá éifeacht láidir aige ar phobal, ar ghnóthaí agus ar theaghlaigh na hÉireann. Mar Aire Stáit a b…
I met my Polish counterpart, the Secretary of State for European Affairs, Mr. Ignacy Niemczycki, in Warsaw on 13 March. This was the first of many engagements I had during my three-day St. Patrick's Day programme in Poland, which was followed with a visit to Ukraine and then to Moldova. The Secretary of State, Mr. Niemczycki, and I discussed the excellent bilateral relations between our two countries, including growi…
What the Polish people have done in supporting refugees from Ukraine, as well as giving military support, has been extraordinary. At the start of the war people arrived off trains or off transport and were met on the platforms by Polish residents and brought to their homes. We can account for millions of people who have benefited from that. There is a strong desire in Poland to see Ukraine accede to the European Unio…
Belarus is an issue of considerable concern to the Polish Government. The Deputy is right. It is a major security concern for them. I think pretty much all of the major figures in the Belarusian opposition are based in Warsaw at the invitation of the Polish Government, so there is a strong link between them. At all levels of government, be it with Prime Minister Tusk, the Taoiseach, Deputy Prime Minister Sikorski, th…
You never mentioned the Irish citizens.
Ba mhaith liom buíochas a ghabháil leis an Teachta as ucht an t-ábhar seo. Increasing the provision of disability specialist residential services is a key Government priority and there has been significant investment in residential services over the course of the last number of years. The overall budget increase in recent years, from €1.7 billion at the close of 2017 to almost to €3.8 billion in 2026, reflects the pr…
I will gladly ask the Minister of State, Deputy Higgins, who cannot be here, to send that exact information to all the Deputies and representatives in Fingal. That is a reasonable request but I just do not have it to hand.
Once again, I thank the Deputy for raising this important issue, which is a priority for the Government. The Government recognises that there is more to do to improve the lived experience of those with a disability. The increase in the disability budget for 2026 further demonstrates the multiple commitments made in the programme for Government commitment to improving the lives of people with disabilities and making a…
I will take this question on behalf of the Minister. I reassure the Deputy that the regeneration of the Naval Service is one of the key priorities for the Minister and the Department. To that end, the Minister has had detailed discussions with the Chief of Staff on the need for a regeneration report on the Naval Service. The Defence Forces are working to have this report completed in the coming weeks.
In relation to…
The Deputy asked specifically about the LÉ Gobnait. That ship is scheduled to enter service in the third quarter of this year. We acknowledge that it would have been preferable to have it in service much sooner. It is the case, however, that the readiness and capability of and the activities carried out by the Naval Service have increased substantially over the past year. Work in that regard is going to continue. The…
Thankfully, there was no more serious damage. The damage was minor in nature. The Naval Service remains satisfied that Carlisle Pier meets its needs. It has pointed out that the berth has recently been refitted with a modern fendering system, which should add to our ships' ability to withstand damaging impacts.
In relation to the potential use of Carlisle Pier as the new forward operating base, the Report of the Com…
I will answer this one on behalf of the Minister. As the Minister has already set out, the defence (amendment) Bill is included in the Government legislative programme for priority publication. There are also some other amendments to the Defence Acts in the legislation. What the triple lock legislation or the defence (amendment) Bill will do is remove the requirement for the UN Security Council mandate because, quite…
We want to make sure our Defence Forces can, first of all, engage in their primary function, which is the protection of the security of the State and, when called upon, to go abroad to serve as peacekeepers, as they have honourably done. Removing the triple lock will not change this in any way. There are many neutral countries and I do not think any of them have as restrictive a law as we do. I agree with Deputy Dunc…
The reason we have a constitutional amendment is if we want to change the Constitution. We are not changing the Constitution, it is simply changing legislation. What was agreed at Lisbon is still in the Constitution by virtue of the protocol to the Lisbon treaty. This does not affect it in any way. I am quite sure that whatever referendum the Government would put forward on Europe or defence, Sinn Féin would oppose i…
I thank the Deputy for the question. I will start by recognising the importance of the Reserve Defence Force to the State. In the past few years, we have witnessed a revitalisation of the Reserve. The strength of the Reserve Defence Force, as of the end of 2025, was 204 first-line Reserve personnel and 1,612 second-line Reserve personnel, which is comprised of 1,481 Army Reserve personnel and 131 Naval Service Reserv…
The regeneration plan was published in July 2024 and has four main priorities: recruitment and retention: resourcing; training; and integration and deployment. In relation to specific issues with Reserve Defence Force activities that attract payments, conditions under which reservists are paid for certain activities are set out in the Defence Force regulations. In 2023, a letter of instruction was issued that was not…
Recruitment has increased substantially, particularly in 2024. It slowed down in 2025 but the numbers were substantially higher than they were 2023. The numbers will be boosted by the number of applicants who were undertaking module 1 pre-induction training at the end of last year. Work has been done and numbers have gone up. That is very important.
There is a huge effort under way to attract more people into the Re…
Gabhaim buíochas leis an Teachta ós rud é gur chuir sé an t-ábhar tábhachtach seo ar an gclár inniu. Gabhann an tAire, an Teachta Browne, a leithscéal. Níl sé in ann a bheith linn um thráthnóna.
At the outset, I should point out that the operation of the public water supply and the wastewater supply are operational issues locally for Uisce Éireann, which has statutory responsibility for all aspects. The Minister, De…
Across Louth and other affected counties, Uisce Éireann teams are still actively responding to the impact of the storm to triage incidents, to prioritise safety-critical interventions and to ensure that essential services remain operational. The exact cause of specific flood incidents observed in parts of Dundalk remain unclear. Multiple factors, including ground saturation, river level fluctuations and tidal interac…
I have huge empathy with the Deputy and the residents. My suggestion would be to let Uisce Éireann and the council deal with the immediate aftermath of what is happening this week. Thereafter, it is fair to say, Uisce Éireann has responsibility for wastewater and the sewerage system in general. The local authority is responsible for drainage. It is probably a case of knocking heads together in the context of the comb…
I will take it back to the Minister.
I thank the Deputy for making this important case. The Government is committed to the provision of additional special school places for children with special educational needs. Budget 2026 secured funding for 3,000 new specialist places and the NCSE is currently looking at where these places should be best located for the school year 2026-2027. There is a lot of work going on at the moment in that regard. Over 2,700 …
I assure people that this process is still under way. Quite frankly, the Department of education does not look at it in terms of Kildare South or Kildare North. It looks at the children who are there. Through the process that will balance out. There will be more in Kildare North, I assume because it is a bigger population. I also assume it will balance out as the process goes on. The idea that this is some sort of po…
I do not know. The Deputy keeps talking about constituencies and why one constituency is getting more than another. The Department-----