That is fine.
TDs / Simon Harris
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Members of the Government answer questions rather than ask them
566,209
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566,201 as a minister, 8 as a TD
140
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Members of the Government answer parliamentary questions rather than ask them, so this page lists none of theirs.
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Contributions to debates 2,972 in all
Dec 2024Oct 2026
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| Month | Contributions |
|---|---|
| December 2024 | 4 |
| January 2025 | 4 |
| February 2025 | 255 |
| March 2025 | 42 |
| April 2025 | 83 |
| May 2025 | 249 |
| June 2025 | 175 |
| July 2025 | 144 |
| August 2025 | 0 |
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| January 2026 | 97 |
| February 2026 | 197 |
| March 2026 | 187 |
| April 2026 | 226 |
| May 2026 | 119 |
| June 2026 | 127 |
| July 2026 | 93 |
| August 2026 | 2 |
| September 2026 | 83 |
| October 2026 | 53 |
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 move amendment No. 7:
In page 13, between lines 23 and 24, to insert the following:
“Amendment of section 477C of Principal Act (Help to Buy)
5.Section 477C of the Principal Act is amended, with effect as on and from 26 November 2025, in subparagraph (ii) of the definition in subsection (1) of “qualifying residence”, by the substitution of “paragraph (c) or (cac), as the case may be, of section 46(1)” for “secti…
I acknowledge the very constructive way Deputies Doherty and Cullinane are engaging on this issue. While I am not certain an amendment to the Finance Bill is the way to go about this, I am willing to work with them and maybe the relevant Oireachtas committee, at which I think Members had a decent discussion about this on Committee Stage. From listening to the two Deputies, I think they are pondering how best to addre…
I am happy to genuinely engage on this and engage with my colleague, the Minister for Health. The Deputies would expect me to say this as a finance Minister, but my sense of this is that it is probably something in the direct expenditure and mapping out space and probably a broader whole-of-government discussion, which I am, of course, a part of, as to how we support people in these situations and whether the tax sys…
I thank Deputy Doherty. I will emphasise some of what he said. My Department commissioned Indecon Economic Consultants to carry out an independent review of the share-based remuneration scheme. The review made a number of recommendations pertaining to share-based remuneration and the PRSI exemption. The review found that the PRSI exemption is regarded as an important support for SMEs and other businesses in Ireland. …
I do not want to be overly argumentative because we have a lot to get through, but the amendment is only looking for another report. I am simply saying to people watching that we do not need another report about the report. We need to consider the recommendations of the report. This is an important area to get right for the reasons the Deputy referenced, including competitive advantage that matters to this country in…
I do acknowledge that.
I move amendment No. 13:
In page 29, to delete lines 25 to 28 and substitute the following:
“ “ ‘relevant state’ means, as regards the years of assessment 2012 to 2025, the Russian Federation, and as regards the years of assessment 2012 to 2030, the Federative Republic of Brazil, the Republic of India, the People’s Republic of China or the Republic of South Africa, and includes—”.
While taking this Bill on Report …
Those are all very fair points. My first response to the question of why Russia was included until now is that I do not honestly know the answer. I do not want to mislead the Dáil but what I can imagine from my involvement in past postings is that as the sanctions regime evolves and do-not-travel notices are issued, we are constantly looking at both the domestic and European levels for more opportunities to tighten u…
I will take amendment Nos. 17 and 18 together. These amendments relate to the temporary reduction applied to the original market value of cars in categories A1 to D, inclusive, and all vans for the purpose of determining the benefit in kind, BIK, payable. The amendments seek to keep the OMV reduction at €10,000 until 31 December 2028, in contrast to what we believe to be the tapering out of the relief provided for in…
There is a further offset for electric vehicles to try to incentivise the transition to them as well. I take the point the Deputy makes. What we are trying to avoid is a moment of cliff edge. You could have a cliff edge in the here and now or in 2028 but we are trying to adopt a gradual, tapered approach to provide that policy certainty and, over time, incentivise and enable people to move to the lower emission vehic…
I thank Deputies Doherty and Gould for their contributions. I should point out for clarity these changes in relation to the standard fund threshold were legislated for in the Finance Act 2024. It set out three specific aspects of the SFT regime, one of which was a technical change. The then Minister for Finance did not bring forward further changes to the standard fund threshold above and beyond what was legislated f…
I have.
That is largely the point I was going to make. I am not unsympathetic to the important issues Deputy Gould raises. I see them in my own constituency. I deal with people like that every day in my role as a public representative in Wicklow and a Member of this House since 2011. That is why we took a number of measures to address child poverty and working family poverty in the budget. I will not have time to outline the…
It was legislated for.
I move amendment No. 20:
In page 36, to delete lines 19 and 20.
I believe this to be largely a technical or cleaning-up amendment. As Deputies who addressed this Bill on Committee Stage will recall, there was a commencement provision included in section 28 to allow for state aid approval for the extension of the scheme as it comes under the agricultural block exemption regulation. The commencement provision is no l…
The Deputy's initial analysis is somewhat right. He has the corporate memory to be able to go back to the then Minister, Michael Noonan. This scheme has not seen a very significant level of uptake. We have been trying to examine ways in which more people could benefit from this scheme, which brings properties back into use. Across the political spectrum, we all share the objective of trying to use every bit of underu…
In the early days of my time in this office, I agree with the Deputy's broader point on spending reviews, not monetising every problem and making sure there is value for money. I will engage with colleagues in relation to that as well.
I also acknowledge, and Deputy Doherty made this point earlier, and I was not saying it to be discourteous, that the way the rules of this place work is that people request reports by…
I will endeavour to keep to the amendment at this late hour of the night. I have plenty I could l say about general election promises in other parties' manifestos and where the average price of €300,000 for a home in Dublin is, etc., which was promised by Sinn Féin. We will return to all that another day.
You dropped the promise and clarified it after-----
We will return to all that another day. I am just making the point-----
I am making the point respectfully-----
I am making the point respectfully that I sit here and hear wrongful framing and misrepresentation of my party, our manifesto and the general election. I look forward to debating that. As the leader of Fine Gael, I will debate that with the leader of Sinn Féin in due course. I look forward to that opportunity.
In relation to the amendment before the House, I do not have a huge amount more to add other than to say th…
It is the viability.
Exactly.