I am-----
TDs / Pearse Doherty
Pearse Doherty
Portrait: © Houses of the Oireachtas (Oireachtas (Open Data) PSI Licence) · source file
1,436
questions asked
Oral and written, to government departments
224,644
words spoken in the chamber
Across 1,657 contributions
378
votes recorded
Each Yes, No or Abstained in a recorded vote
236
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 1,436 in all
Dec 2024Oct 2026
Contributions to debates 1,657 in all
Dec 2024Oct 2026
Show as a table
| Month | Questions | Contributions |
|---|---|---|
| December 2024 | 0 | 1 |
| January 2025 | 10 | 20 |
| February 2025 | 135 | 57 |
| March 2025 | 93 | 120 |
| April 2025 | 59 | 72 |
| May 2025 | 117 | 111 |
| June 2025 | 79 | 75 |
| July 2025 | 132 | 106 |
| August 2025 | 0 | 0 |
| September 2025 | 89 | 38 |
| October 2025 | 75 | 81 |
| November 2025 | 79 | 163 |
| December 2025 | 51 | 102 |
| January 2026 | 64 | 37 |
| February 2026 | 72 | 98 |
| March 2026 | 53 | 95 |
| April 2026 | 64 | 140 |
| May 2026 | 78 | 75 |
| June 2026 | 67 | 102 |
| July 2026 | 60 | 16 |
| August 2026 | 0 | 2 |
| September 2026 | 39 | 90 |
| October 2026 | 20 | 56 |
Debates they spoke in most
Plus 1,142 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 Donegal 29 November 2024 to now
- party Sinn Féin 29 November 2024 to now
Still larger than Fine Gael for the past two elections.
Still. Good luck to you.
More consultation. Why not act?
Why not act? It is because you have are in bed with the vultures. That is the reality.
It is the truth.
119. Deputy Pearse Doherty asked the Tánaiste and Minister for Finance if he will consider further measures on excise duty to reduce the cost of petrol and diesel. [68617/26]
The price of diesel is well above €2 per litre at the pumps right across this State, and at many of them it as high as €2.20. I am sure that the Tánaiste has noticed that. It is hammering people who have no alternative to driving. For many people in rural areas, their car is their connection and lifeline. They simply cannot do without it, whether it is going to work or dropping the kids to school. Does the Tánaiste a…
I have said it numerous times. We cannot control the international price of a barrel of oil. We cannot control what happens in the Middle East or in the Strait of Hormuz, but what we can control in this House is the amount of tax we apply to petrol and diesel. When people are driving up to their petrol stations and they are being charged €2.20 for a litre of diesel and they need that car and the diesel in their tank …
I told the Minister a couple of weeks ago that the Government's plan to reintroduce excise on petrol and diesel was nuts. Putting up carbon tax in two weeks' time in October and then further on 1 November is absolute bonkers. That is why we voted against it. Let us be clear: the Government will get no pats on the back from people for saying "I am not making your lives worse." What people expect from a Government is o…
Will the Tánaiste answer the question?
If it is to one of the newspapers, the Tánaiste will leak like the Titanic.
He will leak like the Titanic.
If there is a journalist in the corridor, he will tell him everything, but, by God, will he tell the Dáil-----
-----or the people of Ireland who are worried about their fuel bills? If there are any journalists here, maybe we will get an answer to the question-----
Deputy Gould ask me to take this in his absence. Obviously, we have been waiting a long time for the vacant homes tax to be introduced. There was a collection of data and so on. It has been introduced now. We understand that the collection rates are very low. I am asking the Minister for an update. We have the 2025 self-assessed data, but what is the most recent data the Minister has? Have we seen a spike in terms of…
My understanding, and the Minister might correct me if I am wrong, is that dereliction and vacancy are two different things.
We are talking about apples and oranges here. The Minister is talking about a derelict properties tax. That is fine; a property that is derelict is visibly derelict. We are talking about vacant homes. We are talking about how the whole idea of this tax is to get homes into usage and to penalise people for leaving properties vacant and not using them in the middle of a housing crisis. We have argued time and again for…
The Minister has announced the derelict properties tax numerous times, but derelict properties are derelict properties and are harder to get into use in the system than vacant homes. Of course we need the tax on them - that should absolutely happen - but it is not a case of looking at something else and forgetting about the fact that this tax here, which has been introduced for the last four years, is not working. I …
I have been raising the issue of home heating oil with the Tánaiste over a long period. The reality is that people have used home heating oil right throughout the current crisis. They use it to heat their homes. They also use it to heat their water in order to be able to wash the dishes. Home heating oil is what 700,000 households across the State rely on, and the Tánaiste refused to cut any excise at all from it bec…
I am asking the Minister to take all the excise away from home heating oil while these prices remain high.
We had the discussion earlier on and the Minister will say it was a Fine Gael Government that did this but there is no doubt, if you look back at the record, that the reason the Government did not reduce any excise duty on home heating oil is because it is carbon tax, which is this Holy Grail. I really do not want to go into a discussion on that, but the Government is moving now. For the first time it is going to red…
This again bring us back to the point we are at now, which for a lot of people feels like an emergency. There are things happening in this State that are genuinely concerning from a health and safety point of view. There are mothers and fathers going to the petrol station and filling five-gallon drums with kerosene. I am not sure how good an idea it is to be driving around country roads with five-gallon drums of kero…
The Minister can reduce it all. He can take the cost down by €183 a fill. We published the legislation.
The Government voted against that and the following day it came out and said it might do something on carbon tax. I welcome that. My job is to push the Minister into positions he does not want to be in. That is fine. He will refuse to say he did not want to be there but I can play back the tunes in here.