I thank the Deputy. I have heard him speak in this House passionately about lots of things, including the issue of dereliction in recent times. Dereliction during a housing emergency is a particular challenge as something that should be almost socially unacceptable. We have an emergency. All of us recognise that. We have different views on how best to tackle it, but tackling dereliction needs to be an important part …
TDs / Simon Harris
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Members of the Government answer questions rather than ask them
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566,201 as a minister, 8 as a TD
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Debates they spoke in most
Plus 2,685 contributions in the regular slots, such as Leaders' Questions and Priority Questions. Speech from the chair is not counted.
Party, constituency and offices
- constituency Wicklow 29 November 2024 to now
- office Taoiseach 29 November 2024 to 22 January 2025
- party Fine Gael 29 November 2024 to now
- office Minister for Defence 23 January 2025 to 25 March 2025
- office Minister for Foreign Affairs 23 January 2025 to 25 March 2025
- office Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade 26 March 2025 to 18 November 2025
- office Minister for Defence 26 March 2025 to 18 November 2025
- office Minister for Finance 18 November 2025 to now
I enjoy these rare moments of agreement between Deputy Gould and me. He often shouts at me from the other side of the House and the odd time I shout back as well. As we come up to the Christmas period, it is nice to have a rare moment of harmony so let us cherish that. We are having this rare moment of harmony because we both recognise that dereliction is a real scourge. Deputy Nash made this point earlier from a pub…
The point Deputy Gould makes about what is derelict, and getting all of that right and underpinning it in legislation, is exactly what we will have to do when we are bringing the legislation through this House. The Deputy is right when he says that it cannot be just a lick of paint or somebody pretending to resolve the dereliction. We all have to be serious about this. We can debate the structure and composition of t…
I thank Deputy Butterly for her kind words and I look forward to working with her, as we already do on many issues.
The living cities initiative is a targeted measure which is aimed at specific areas in need of regeneration. It currently offers income or corporation tax relief for qualifying expenditure incurred in the refurbishment and conversion of qualifying residential and commercial buildings located within spe…
There is so much potential in the M1 corridor, that north-east economic area. The announcement of the partnership between Dundalk Institute of Technology, DKIT, and Queen's University Belfast has the potential to be transformational. I really believe that. Coupled with the living cities initiative, that will bring much-needed Government support through the tax system to Dundalk and Drogheda to tackle vacancy and dere…
Deputy Neville is right. We have to be willing to look at every possible way to help tackle vacancy and dereliction but also to bring back vibrancy in towns, including towns that are not classified as older towns but are vibrant and growing and often have other challenges such as the population growing so fast and keeping up in terms of the infrastructure. The Deputy regularly keeps me on my toes in this House on the…
I thank Deputy Neville for the good wishes. I look forward to working with the Deputy on all things Kildare and all things national in this role, as we do already.
I thank the Deputy for this question in what is an important and growing sector of the Irish economy. The EU legislation which governs the harmonisation of taxes on alcohol across the Union allows member states to offer certain excise relief to independen…
That is a fair point. I will provide some figures which might be useful. I can send them on in tabular form to the Deputy with more detail. Since 2021, the amount of relief claimed by way of remittance is around €7 million to €8 million per annum. Most claimants are understood to opt for remission. In terms of claims made each year, there are around 70 to 90. To give an example, in 2024, the most recent year I have f…
I thank Deputy Butterly. I am happy to take that opportunity. I will ask the Ministers for agriculture and enterprise to engage with her in relation to that. The ideal is an ecosystem that works for everyone but I do not profess to be extraordinarily knowledgeable on this. I would welcome that because tillage is a sector we want and need to support. It is one of the sectors, from an agricultural point of view, that a…
That gave me an awful wake-up call. I had not thought of it like that but it is factually correct.
I thank Deputy Ó Cearúil for raising this question. Future Forty is a really important piece of work. I can say that because I had nothing to do with it. It happened before I was in the Department of Finance. Huge credit is owed to the officials in the Department of Finance, the chief economist John McCarthy and others…
The Deputy is correct. Future Forty does highlight that expenditure related to demographic ageing is expected to grow substantially in the coming decades. Healthcare, long-term care and pensions are expected to take up an increasingly larger amount of the Government's budget. Mitigation of the ageing costs will depend on improving efficiencies and ultimately boosting productivity in public services, including by inte…
I agree with Deputy Neville on the importance of continuing to run budget surpluses and invest in our Future Ireland Funds – the Future Ireland Fund and the Infrastructure, Climate and Nature Fund – and the importance of continuing to be prudent in our spending of public money. That is why the Minister for public expenditure, Deputy Chambers, and I will bring to the Cabinet next week the medium-term fiscal framework,…
I thank the Deputy for this question, in which he has rightly asked me to outline the progress that has been made in divesting State moneys from companies that derive profits from their activities in the occupied Palestinian territories. The Government is clear in its opposition to illegal Israeli settlements, which are contrary to international law and damaging to the pursuit of peace in the Middle East. Ireland has…
I will discuss and get an overview on a variety of issues with the NTMA at a first sit-down meeting. ISIF has divested from six companies on the UN database. The NTMA also divested from directly held sovereign bond holdings with a global portfolio across Egypt, Israel and Jordan in July 2025.
It is important to note, as my notes suggest, that companies can come onto and off the UN database.
Many of these companies …
When the Deputy uses words like "any other decent Irish person", I am not sure whether he is trying to suggest that we are indecent or to vilify.
I am wondering because the Deputy uses these loaded comments to suggest that he is decent and we are not.
Do not shout me down. I do not know how long this bully-boy routine of shouting me down is going to go on but if the Deputy could just ask me a question and allow me to answer it, it is how a democracy works. Stop shouting me down. It is a bit of basic respect.
The Deputy has been at this a long time. He knows the law of the land under the NTMA Act. Does he accept that the NTMA Act allows ISIF full independence in relation to its investment decisions? Does the Deputy accept that the Minister for Finance-----
No, I am sorry, I am speaking. Then I will sit down and the Deputy can speak.
I am asking them rhetorically of the Chair.
Does Dáil Éireann understand that under the NTMA Acts, the investment decisions of ISIF are completely and utterly independent? Deputy Doherty tried to do this to my predecessor, suggesting that he was making decisions in relation to it. It was not true then and it is not going to be true now. The Deputy is not going to do it to me. If the Deputy wants to bring forward legislative proposals to change things, bring th…
We can have the discussion. The Deputy is asking me in parliamentary question time.
The second point I want to make, amidst the heckling on a serious issue, is that I do not need to be lectured on how to support the people of Palestine. Ask the Palestinian President, Prime Minister or ambassador how they have found our levels of support. I do not need a lecture from the Deputy. Is it his position that ISIF should no…
Is that the Deputy's position? That raises very serious questions.
The consequences of that are very significant.
The Deputy misses Paschal.