I am here.
TDs / Aidan Farrelly
Aidan Farrelly
Portrait: © Houses of the Oireachtas (Oireachtas (Open Data) PSI Licence) · source file
1,387
questions asked
Oral and written, to government departments
53,883
words spoken in the chamber
Across 192 contributions. Plus 135 contributions from the chair, not counted
391
votes recorded
Each Yes, No or Abstained in a recorded vote
227
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 1,387 in all
Dec 2024Oct 2026
Contributions to debates 192 in all
Dec 2024Oct 2026
Show as a table
| Month | Questions | Contributions |
|---|---|---|
| December 2024 | 0 | 1 |
| January 2025 | 32 | 0 |
| February 2025 | 140 | 19 |
| March 2025 | 124 | 10 |
| April 2025 | 85 | 13 |
| May 2025 | 53 | 11 |
| June 2025 | 114 | 5 |
| July 2025 | 50 | 6 |
| August 2025 | 0 | 0 |
| September 2025 | 81 | 12 |
| October 2025 | 11 | 4 |
| November 2025 | 60 | 12 |
| December 2025 | 57 | 10 |
| January 2026 | 65 | 9 |
| February 2026 | 82 | 28 |
| March 2026 | 60 | 3 |
| April 2026 | 107 | 8 |
| May 2026 | 108 | 7 |
| June 2026 | 54 | 11 |
| July 2026 | 42 | 9 |
| August 2026 | 0 | 0 |
| September 2026 | 26 | 9 |
| October 2026 | 36 | 5 |
Debates they spoke in most
Plus 96 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 Kildare North 29 November 2024 to now
- party Social Democrats 29 November 2024 to now
The Minister said there was no one here from the Social Democrats.
If the Minister keeps looking at me when making his remarks, I will keep responding to him.
I thank the Ceann Comhairle for allowing me to speak on this matter. The Minister of State is faced with a rare situation whereby all the TDs in the constituency are working together on it. We raised it earlier with the Secretary General of the Department of education at the Committee of Public Accounts. We know that Simon Harris and the Minister are aware of what is happening.
Deputy Neville outlined the matter in …
I was somewhat concerned about the fact that the officials of the Department of Education and Youth who appeared before the committee yesterday stated that they are conducting a peer review in respect of the architect's report. In some ways, this casts a shadow what the architect has said. Ultimately, what we need to know, in very clear terms, is whether the plan that was presented to the school on Tuesday will remed…
I thank the Minister of State for his response. Like my colleagues, I commend the work of Deputy Rice in the lead-up to this motion and in presenting a motion which, as Deputy O'Callaghan said, is not opposed. We still have as many questions as we have answers about the implementation of the motion.
The irony, as we all truly know, is that you have to plan two or three weeks in advance if you need a GP appointment. …
Who is supporting that?
What are you talking about?
That is not in the amendment.
My thoughts on this amendment specifically are on the record from last week and, unlike others, I will not repeat them here tonight just because I have another opportunity to take the microphone. Tonight this Government is about to make history by legislating for the ability to detain innocent children for doing nothing wrong. As it stands, at the pace we are going at this evening, irrespective of why we are here in …
Many of the points have been already made in support of Deputy Gannon's amendment. I truthfully cannot believe we are here legislating for the detention of innocent children. It is shocking that they can have committed no crime and done nothing wrong, yet we are legislating for their detention apparently if it "is in the minor’s best interests", despite the fact that we have heard from every corner of the expertise o…
94. Deputy Aidan Farrelly asked the Minister for Children, Disability and Equality if she will provide an update on her engagements with Tusla regarding well-being checks of closed cases; if she has received a progress report or interim report from the agency and-or the independent steering group; if she has requested a broadening of the scope of these checks; and the workforce planning conducted in respect of ensuri…
Will the Minister provide the House with an update on the Tusla well-being checks, which she instigated within her Department on foot of a number of very tragic cases last year, for all children and young people who had their cases closed by Tusla during the Covid years?
I thank the Minister because she has pre-empted the piece I was going to try to discuss with her. To be honest, I have come around to the idea of this project. At the start I was quite cautious because my understanding and the meaning I would infer from "well-being" would suggest that you are getting a thorough understanding of how a child or a young person is, as opposed to what I called at the time a proof-of-exist…
I thank the Minister for that update. I hear sincerity in her response and I give her my assurance that, from a Social Democrats perspective, whatever we can do to support the Government in trying to seek that legislative change in this instance, I think it would be really important. If we are going to do it, why not do it right in this instance in respect of 12-year-olds and 13-years-olds who experienced lockdown go…
On a point of clarification, the final few words of this definition are "for reasons which are not beyond the applicant's control". Could the Minister outline what those reasons might be, who will determine what those reasons are and if there is a threshold given that is part of the definition?
Notwithstanding the merits of this amendment, we should be clear first that we should not be legislating for the detention of children who have done nothing wrong. That should never be a part of legislation and certainly not legislation that has been described in this House today as rushed in nature. It has not been thought through. There will be amendments forthcoming on other Stages.
We have not thought this Bill …
I thank the Minister for his response. Today we are misjudging in an overwhelming fashion the vulnerability associated with children and young people who are experiencing this process. In doing so, I have lost count of the number of bodies with acronyms that have come out and said that it is never in a child's best interests to be detained. Notwithstanding the fact that the Minister has included point 3 in the Bill, …
I wish to pick up on what the Minister said that judges or Tusla will quite often make that determination. I struggle to think of an example where they would make such a determination in a child's best interests - to detain them simply for existing. There are no behavioural issues, crimes being committed or laws being broken. There is no rationale for that decision. It is quite disingenuous to say Tusla or a judge wo…
With regard to amendment No. 20, I am fully supportive of amendment No. 10. We will take another run at it in a definition in terms of Article 14.1 of the Eurodac regulation. My concern equally with this legislation, and it speaks again to the somewhat rushed nature of it, is that it could even be at odds with domestic legislation with regard to Children First and young children and young people's rights and welfare …
I thank the Minister for coming in. With regard to amendment No. 10 and equally the one in my name, amendment No. 20, I want to highlight a couple of aspects of amendment No. 14 that went into detail on this matter. It has since been ruled out of order. It is essentially just an extension-----
-----of what amendment No. 20 was. It is the same amendment essentially without the detail. The Minister can see that. Long before I ever considered or entertained a career in politics or had an opportunity to do so, I was a youth worker in Kildare. I worked with children and young people who were living in direct provision centres. I would love to be here appealing for legislation to enshrine meaningful opportunitie…
I have tried to listen attentively to this. This has been a really interesting conversation over the last hour or so. I have mixed emotions on it, I have mixed views on it and I do not really know where I stand on it yet. Ultimately, proposed centres were never set on fire because of a lack of GP services, a lack of school places in a community or because the traffic congestion was too bad, and this amendment is almo…
The ways by which successive Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil governments have handled flooding over the past ten years is an example of gross incompetence. In March 2025, I put a parliamentary question to the Minister for housing - it is a shame he has left the Chamber; he has abandoned ship on this issue - asking about the national flood forecasting and warning service. I asked, in particular, why this information was not…
On Monday, nurses began a work-to-rule in Naas General Hospital over what they say are unacceptable and unsafe staffing deficits. These include a failure to comply with the agreed safe staffing frameworks, a failure to increase staffing to meet a 25% increase in attendance at accident and emergency and maternity leave posts not being filled. Will the Taoiseach and the Minister for Health reach out to the HSE to get i…