The strategy I referred to, A Career for EU, is delivering results. Ireland has 43 permanent officials at key entry grades in the European Commission as of December 2025. That is up from 30 in 2022. A total of 1,733 Irish people applied to the AD5 competition, which is the first large-scale graduate recruitment competition since 2019, placing Ireland tenth out of the 27 member states on a per capita basis. In January…
TDs / Niall Collins
Niall Collins
Minister of State at the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine
Portrait: © Houses of the Oireachtas (Oireachtas (Open Data) PSI Licence) · source file
223
questions asked
Oral and written, to government departments
63,958
words spoken in the chamber
63,945 as a minister, 13 as a TD
351
votes recorded
Each Yes, No or Abstained in a recorded vote
87
topics asked about
Across 17 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 223 in all
Dec 2024Oct 2026
Contributions to debates 201 in all
Dec 2024Oct 2026
Show as a table
| Month | Questions | Contributions |
|---|---|---|
| December 2024 | 0 | 0 |
| January 2025 | 14 | 0 |
| February 2025 | 13 | 7 |
| March 2025 | 10 | 7 |
| April 2025 | 16 | 2 |
| May 2025 | 11 | 7 |
| June 2025 | 12 | 3 |
| July 2025 | 13 | 40 |
| August 2025 | 0 | 0 |
| September 2025 | 10 | 13 |
| October 2025 | 11 | 27 |
| November 2025 | 14 | 8 |
| December 2025 | 9 | 4 |
| January 2026 | 6 | 8 |
| February 2026 | 15 | 5 |
| March 2026 | 16 | 7 |
| April 2026 | 4 | 8 |
| May 2026 | 11 | 20 |
| June 2026 | 16 | 0 |
| July 2026 | 8 | 21 |
| August 2026 | 0 | 0 |
| September 2026 | 10 | 1 |
| October 2026 | 4 | 13 |
Debates they spoke in most
Plus 146 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 Limerick County 29 November 2024 to now
- party Fianna Fáil 29 November 2024 to now
- office Minister of State at the Department of Justice 29 January 2025 to 4 June 2025
- office Minister of State at the Department of Justice, Home Affairs and Migration 5 June 2025 to 28 May 2026
- office Minister of State at the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine 28 May 2026 to now
I thank the Deputy for raising this important matter and providing me with an opportunity to update the House. I am replying on behalf of the Minister for housing, Deputy James Browne.
Tenancy sustainment, or tenant in situ, is not a stand-alone programme or scheme. It is a priority category under the Department of housing's social housing second-hand acquisitions programme which helps prevent social housing support…
I will absolutely bring the comments the Deputy has made on behalf of her constituents to the attention of the Minister. I will also convey to him her comments on how Fingal County Council has exhausted the process. I will make him aware of that.
I convey the apologies of the Minister, Deputy Heydon, who is unable to attend. I am taking the debate on behalf of the Government.
I wish to clearly state at the outset that the area of animal welfare is of the utmost importance to me, the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine and the Government as a whole. Our Department devotes considerable resources to protecting the well-being of animals and dealing wi…
I am not.
That is a nonsense comparison.
Through the Chair, it is a nonsense comparison.
Well I do.
I did not say that.
I absolutely respect everybody's opinion in relation to this or any other issue. People are perfectly entitled to take a position on this or any other issue, to articulate that position and to exercise their mandate to debate in these Houses, as am I doing as both a constituency TD and a Minister of State at the Department of agriculture. It is wrong, however, to try to misrepresent what I have said and the factual p…
I move:
That Dáil Éireann resolves that the period of operation of sections 1 to 7 and 9 of the Civil Law (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 2021 (No. 14 of 2021) be extended for a further period of six months, beginning on the 1st day of June, 2026 and ending on the 30th day of November, 2026.
I am here to introduce a resolution to extend the sunset clause in the Civil Law (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 2021. Deputies…
I would like to be associated with those remarks.
I thank all of the speakers for their contributions and pledges of support for the motion.
Hopefully, it will be the last occasion that we will be here renewing this on a twice-annual basis. As we indicated, it will be legislated for on a permanent basis.
We listened to what the speakers had to say. Some of the issues raised were on topic and some of them were off topic.
A lot of them had to do with the local auth…
I thank the Deputy for his question. In line with the provisions of section 88 of the Courts of Justice Act 1924, peace commissioners are appointed, and may be removed from that appointment, by the Minister for Justice, Home Affairs and Migration and each newly-appointed peace commissioner is issued with a warrant of appointment. The Department informs An Garda Síochána of all newly-appointed peace commissioners in r…
I thank the Deputy. I agree with him on this. Part of the work of reviewing the roll of peace commissioners is with a view to making it as accurate as possible. Obviously there is a legacy of records and retained data. Given the roll of peace commissioners goes back nearly to the foundation of the State it is quite a complex and lengthy undertaking but good progress has been made. Once that work has been completed, c…
I agree with the Deputy. It is my view that it should be progressed and it is also the view within the Department. I think the overall review that we are conducting will come to that conclusion also. I flag to the Deputy, though, that it is not provided for within the legislation at the moment, so we will have to come up with some kind of a system or an administrative fix to be able to manage that appropriately.
I thank the Deputy for his question. The organisation and deployment of policing resources for major sporting events is an operational matter for the Garda Commissioner and, indeed, local Garda management. As Ministers, we have no role as such in operational decisions, however, I am assured that the resourcing of policing requirements for high-profile sporting events is fully considered within the overall context of …
I previously mentioned that the previous Irish open which was staged in Lahinch, County Clare, in 2019 was a successful event. I also put on the record that in 2019, President Trump visited Clare, in 2023, President Biden visited Clare and President Zelenskyy visited there last December. Those visits were all successfully policed and properly and appropriately resourced by An Garda Síochána at the time. The expertise…
I reiterate that President Trump, in 2019, and President Biden both visited County Clare and the visits were policed accordingly. In the Clare-Tipperary division, which the Deputy knows well, 661 gardaí were assigned to that division as of March 2026, which is a significant body of people. Every Garda division wants more and has its hand up for more gardaí to be allocated to it.
The Deputy is concerned about the res…
I thank the Deputy for raising this important issue. There is a critical need for a new water source for Dublin, the east and the midlands. Currently, the River Liffey supplies 85% of the water requirements for 1.7 million people in Dublin, Meath, Kildare and Wicklow. By relying so heavily on one river, there is no alternative if there is a contamination or weather event and no backup if equipment failure affects sup…
It is important to restate why we need the project. Currently, the water supply in the eastern and midlands region faces a number of serious challenges. A single source - the River Liffey - supplies 85% of the water requirements for 1.7 million people in the greater Dublin area. This dependency on the Liffey results in a serious vulnerability to risks such as prolonged drought and-or contamination, not just for Dubli…
I thank Deputy Cooney for raising what is a very important matter and giving us the opportunity to update the House.
Stakeholder public engagement is one of the most important principles underlining the planning system, with the need for engagement with local communities being of particular importance to enable every citizen to have their say in how their area grows and develops over time. Under the Planning and Dev…
Again, I thank the Deputy for raising this important issue.
The Planning and Development Act 2024 recognises that strong and sustainable communities are best supported through meaningful public participation in local development planning and decision-making. Effective planning is not solely about technical assessments or infrastructure co-ordination; it is also about ensuring communities have a genuine opportunity t…
I thank Senator McGrath for raising this important matter and for giving me the opportunity to reply. I begin by reiterating the Government's strong commitment to boosting recruitment to and supporting the retention of personnel in the Defence Forces. Military authorities have advised that the strength of the Permanent Defence Force stood at 7,778 as of 31 March, the latest date for which this figure is available. La…
To conclude on some of the key enabling measures that we have introduced for recruitment and retention, we have also increased the patrol duty allowance payable to Naval Service personnel at sea, which has been doubled after ten days at sea in a calendar year. We have seen the extension of the Naval Service tax credit for a further five years, the extension of the service commitment scheme for pilots in the Air Corps…