I support Deputy Kelly's amendment. It is a shame we have even got to this point. Each time we say this Bill caters for the detention of children and that it is the first time in the history of the State that such legislation will be enacted, I get a sense from the Minister he does not think it is a fair description. Last week either he or the Minister of State said this was only for a 12-hour defined period and I th…
TDs / Gary Gannon
Gary Gannon
Portrait: © Houses of the Oireachtas (Oireachtas (Open Data) PSI Licence) · source file
645
questions asked
Oral and written, to government departments
147,808
words spoken in the chamber
Across 475 contributions
389
votes recorded
Each Yes, No or Abstained in a recorded vote
109
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 645 in all
Dec 2024Oct 2026
Contributions to debates 475 in all
Dec 2024Oct 2026
Show as a table
| Month | Questions | Contributions |
|---|---|---|
| December 2024 | 0 | 0 |
| January 2025 | 6 | 1 |
| February 2025 | 32 | 27 |
| March 2025 | 90 | 23 |
| April 2025 | 117 | 32 |
| May 2025 | 32 | 24 |
| June 2025 | 49 | 39 |
| July 2025 | 11 | 19 |
| August 2025 | 0 | 0 |
| September 2025 | 15 | 9 |
| October 2025 | 38 | 17 |
| November 2025 | 28 | 22 |
| December 2025 | 10 | 7 |
| January 2026 | 40 | 35 |
| February 2026 | 23 | 45 |
| March 2026 | 15 | 31 |
| April 2026 | 5 | 27 |
| May 2026 | 9 | 16 |
| June 2026 | 35 | 26 |
| July 2026 | 23 | 39 |
| August 2026 | 0 | 0 |
| September 2026 | 41 | 14 |
| October 2026 | 26 | 22 |
Debates they spoke in most
Plus 249 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 Dublin Central 29 November 2024 to now
- party Social Democrats 29 November 2024 to now
I do not believe for a second we are being as cautious as is necessary. I do not believe we should be legislating for the detention of children or for the detention of people who have committed no crime. We already have a scenario where a significant amount of the population in our prisons is made up of our people awaiting deportations. That has created a multitude of injustices. It was captured by the Inspector of P…
It is very difficult because the Minister sounds very reasonable. He has told us that under only three conditions will a child be detained when it is in their best interests. That is fine, but we do not legislate for the Minister's good intent. There will be another Minister for justice and other Governments. There are people who will go further. We are already going further than we thought would be the case three ye…
I move amendment No. 10:
In page 23, between lines 24 and 25, to insert the following:
“(3) (a) In the application and interpretation of this Act, the best interests of the child shall be a primary consideration in all matters affecting a person who is a minor or who is presumed to be a minor.
(b) In determining for the purposes of paragraph (a) what is in the best interests of the child, the following factors sha…
I appreciate that the Minister has said he will "consider" the amendment. Two weeks ago he said he would consider amendments, but I have not seen a huge amount of evidence of that. When we asked for the specification of the rights of the child to be clarified in the Bill, he said this may not be necessary. One of the factors he pointed to was the Constitution. The rights of the child are protected in the Constitution…
No, but the Minister said that the term "the best interests of the child" is in the Constitution. The rights of the family are also enumerated in the Constitution, but later tonight the Minister will obliterate the family reunification scheme. There is no consistency across the board in terms of the arguments or the merits. I have come to the conclusion that the Minister is probably going to vote against all of the a…
I will support Deputy Kelly’s amendment. There is an element of having your cake and eating it when it comes to the pact and the measures the Government says are required. When it requires safeguards, the Government seems to offer fewer. When it requires oversight, it seems to offer the bare minimum. I think that is what Deputy Kelly is getting at here. There is an absence of oversight and a consolidation of power in…
Too often during this debate and for the past number of months we have heard this will be looked at and this will be assessed. There is very little confidence about the manifestation of those words as something tangible we can look at and scrutinise to see how it fits into our laws. It is one of the reasons this Bill is almost designed to fail. I am going to stick with the figure of 84% of people who claim asylum in …
Britain has moved from being a safe third country because of its Rwanda policy. The Irish courts found that they could not ensure that people who were returned to Britain would be safe from harm. I accept that the policy of redesignating Britain as a safe third country is because we think Keir Starmer is a lot friendlier than Nigel Farage or whoever may be coming next, but that is the problem with legislating for the…
If the last hour has proven anything to me, it is that in many ways the Minister has got his way with bringing Committee Stage to the floor of the Dáil. There are 270 amendments and we will not get close to any of them. There will be no scrutiny of the Minister's family reunification changes that are horrendously cruel. There will be no scrutiny of the Minister's places of detention health screening. We may as well t…
I thank the Minister of State for taking this Topical Issue. It is ironic that he holds the role as Minister of State with responsibility for older people when my Topical Issue relates to people on the other end of the life cycle. There is a desperate need for critical care expansion at the Rotunda Hospital.
All of us have childhood memories that will stay with us for life. Mine come from about 31 years ago. My two …
I thank the Minister of State for his response. I listened carefully to it and read the words. I heard the Taoiseach today and listened to the Minister for Health on the radio this morning. Everybody shares the frustration. I understand the Minister is going to meet the master of the Rotunda, Professor Sean Daly, in two weeks. I met him yesterday. It is vital that when the Minister for Health goes to meet the master …
We usually share time at the start of a motion.
It is fair to say I am about to speak on a Bill which, at first, I did not fully understand. It is not one that, when you sit down to read it initially, will get your blood boiling and make you excited, but that is exactly what good administration should be about because when public procurement becomes exciting, it usually means that something has gone wrong, and we have seen too many instances of that. This Bill pro…
Yes, but I thought the Ceann Comhairle was going to give us back the time.
We are very excited.
Get the violin.
The opposite of restorative justice is the retraumatising of victims and yesterday survivors of the Stardust tragedy expressed feelings of shock and retraumatisation following the Government's announcement. Survivors were told clearly that this would not be a one-size-fits-all scheme. The Taoiseach confirmed in a memo to the Government that exceptionality would be recognised. The Minister stood up in the Dáil and rep…
Will the Taoiseach's Department meet survivors and their legal representatives?
I acknowledge Sinn Féin for bringing forward this welcome Bill. I will support it because it responds to a harm that is no longer hypothetical and no longer something we can say the law has time to catch up with. Only today, Ireland's Online Safety Commissioner said she was "horrified" by what she saw when testing the AI system Grok. She was horrified that it could generate sexualised, degrading images of people who …
I thank Deputies Hayes and Quaide for bringing this motion before us and for their commitment in respect of this matter. Effective parliamentary exchange often involves a contest of beliefs. Some people hold certain values while others hold different values. That is an exchange. However, this motion also includes what are just facts. If I mention a fact that the Minister disputes or says is not true, he should feel f…
The motion before us asks the Dáil to decide whether Ireland should exercise its opt-in, under Protocol 21, to participate in an EU agreement governing the transfer of passenger name record data between the European Union and Switzerland, for the purposes of counterterrorism and serious crime. Obviously, this is a decision that matters, not because co-operation with Switzerland is in any way controversial on its own …
Schools.
There is a world in which this Bill could have been a turning point. This was potentially an opportunity to build an international protection system that would put dignity, fairness, care and, yes, efficiency at the heart of how we treat people who come to our country seeking protection. We had one such vision. We had the Catherine Day report, which stated we should move away from privatisation, build public, not-for…
I return to the scourge of scramblers. Despite the assurance the Taoiseach gave earlier, the fact of the matter is it should not have taken as long as it has taken to get to this point. The legislation passed in 2023 to give effect to the control of scramblers and enforcement had provision for a prohibition on the use of scramblers in urban communities. Last night, I watched a person of extraordinary courage, Siobhán…