I thank the Deputy and Councillor Marie Murphy for their work on this. I was looking into this and there are approximately 17 new special classes sanctioned for County Tipperary for the coming academic year. I think there are nine at primary level and eight at post-primary level. This is in addition to 138 special classes currently in operation in County Tipperary and three special schools in the county which have ap…
TDs / Simon Harris
0
questions asked
Members of the Government answer questions rather than ask them
566,209
words spoken in the chamber
566,201 as a minister, 8 as a TD
140
votes recorded
Each Yes, No or Abstained in a recorded vote
From the Dáil chamber only: committee meetings are not in this archive.
Members of the Government answer parliamentary questions rather than ask them, so this page lists none of theirs.
Month by month
Low months are usually recesses, when the Dáil does not sit. The archive runs to 22 October 2026.
Contributions to debates 2,972 in all
Dec 2024Oct 2026
Show as a table
| 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 |
| September 2025 | 79 |
| October 2025 | 214 |
| November 2025 | 347 |
| December 2025 | 192 |
| 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 thank the Deputy. She is right that we have consistently said that no one should be disadvantaged based on when they entered the scheme. She is bringing forward a suggestion that sounds as if it makes common sense and is constructive, and I thank her for that. In the absence of all the information, I will ask the Minister, Deputy Browne, to look at her proposal and engage with her directly.
I thank the Deputy for raising this issue. I have loads of statistics here and do you know what I am going to do? I will not read them out. The statistics tell me we are doing well in terms of response times and the likes but I also live in County Wicklow, know County Wexford well and know and hear the challenges people raise in relation to this.
I am told in relation to the question on capacity that the National Am…
I thank the Deputy. Deputy Michael Healy-Rae thinks that is a great idea so I had better pass that on too. There is a lot of common sense in what the Deputy said. Garda vetting is an extremely important issue. The Deputy says that, I say that and we all know that. We have to support the Garda in making sure we know everything we need to know about people, particularly those who work with children and vulnerable and o…
I thank the Deputy for raising the issue and bringing to my attention the petition and advocacy of the family of the late Adam. We thank them for that too. I take very seriously the points raised. There will be a new mental health Bill coming through the House relatively shortly and that will provide an opportunity for us to tease through these issues and make sure the mental health structures and laws in place are m…
I thank the Deputy for raising this issue with me again in the Dáil. As he rightly said, I met a number of local residents, including Ms O'Dwyer and Ms Crowe, and they were very decent people. It is not fair to say I did not come back to them. I listened to them, engaged with them and passed on their views to the relevant Ministers. The description of Ukrainian people being put on buses and not knowing where they are…
I agree with a lot of what the Deputy said in the sense that no parent should have to protest in relation to that. I would just say - the Deputy may or may not agree - that there is not a lack of political will. Everybody in this House wants to get this issue right. I believe the Minister, Deputy McEntee, has engaged with a number of families involved and is willing, as is the Minister of State, Deputy Moynihan, to d…
I thank the Deputy. There is a particular poignancy when she raises this issue because I am conscious that she served with distinction as part of our peacekeeping mission. I thank her for her service. I join with her on what is the International Day of UN Peacekeepers in celebrating the vital role that our peacekeepers play across the world. It is now more crucial than ever before, at a time when the global security …
I thank the Deputy for raising this issue. He is absolutely correct. He knows better than I do that there is increasing demand for school places in the Newcastle-Rathcoole school planning area due to new residential development. So far, the response of the Department and Government has included the establishment of Coláiste Pobal Fóla in Citywest in August 2020 and the expansion of Holy Family Community School in Rat…
I thank the Deputy for raising this important issue. My thoughts, like his, are in the first instance with the employees impacted. This decision was flagged by the company in March but yesterday it was confirmed to staff that the decision to close its Irish site will proceed. I understand this is part of the company reviewing its global structure. It has been implementing cost-cutting measures over the past year, whi…
I thank the Deputy for raising this issue. It is absolutely true that everybody deserves to be safe in his or her home and community. I join the Deputy in praising the community workers and local gardaí for the excellent work they do in the area.
I will talk directly to the Minister for Justice about the King's Island area and the need for more support and resourcing for the Garda. I will ask the Minister to come ba…
I thank the Deputy. Ireland’s support for the Government and people of Ukraine is steadfast. This remains a key focus of my Department’s engagements with Ukrainian interlocutors at political level; with the Ukrainian Embassy in Dublin through the Irish Embassy in Kyiv; and at EU and international level, where I continue to raise Ukraine as a matter of priority.
The Ukrainian foreign minister regularly joins the mont…
I very much welcome what the Deputy says because it reminds us of the fact there is only one aggressor here. It is Russia. It is Putin. There is a President of Ukraine and a President of Russia. The President, Government and people of Ukraine are willing and ready to accept an unconditional ceasefire for a period of time to provide space for proper talks and negotiations on a lasting, just, enduring peace. Russia tal…
The Deputy is right. We cannot walk away from supporting and standing by Ukraine. We all want peace. We all want to see the killing and the war end. We want to see the prisoners released. We saw some degree of a prisoner exchange recently. However, we do not want a peace that rewards aggression or that rips up the UN Charter. We do not want a "peace" that does not involve Ukraine. Therefore, the most important thing …
Exactly. I would add that I spoke very much in favour of that motion yesterday. I said I not only was not opposing it but also wanted to see it taken forward. I believed it a constructive addition to the discussion. Government and Opposition need to work more together on the common values we share and our desire to see an end to the genocide taking place in Gaza, perpetrated by the Israeli Government.
Before coming …
That is absolutely the case. I do not mean to be pedantic, but as I said yesterday, there has in the past been an emergency special session of the UN General Assembly on this issue. If it is reconvened and becomes the vehicle by which we can bring forward the resolution discussed yesterday in the House or another mechanism is required, we are all open to working on this and the outcome is the same.
I appreciate what…
I thank the Deputy. He is correct that Ireland will be pleased to play a central role at that UN conference. We have been invited by France and Saudi Arabia to co-chair one of the working groups. With Türkiye, we will be co-chairing one of the eight working groups that form part of the conference. Final details of the work programmes for each working group are to be established in the coming days. Intensive work and …
I agree with the Deputy. Following a meeting of the Foreign Affairs Council last Tuesday, the EU High Representative announced that the EU would finally conduct a review of Article 2 of the EU-Israel association agreement. This is an important decision that reflects the grave concerns held by member states regarding the situation in Gaza. We went from two countries - Ireland and Spain - calling for this to 17 countri…
The Deputy is right. It is offensive, to put it mildly, that it has taken this long to get to the point of reviewing the association agreement. It is as clear as day that the human rights clauses of the association agreement are being breached. I understand there needs to be a review to establish that, and I get that, but this is something that we called for in February 2024.
I welcome the fact that there is now a c…
Every day, the Government looks at what more we can do and is happy to always constructively look at that with the Opposition. I, too, do not want to revisit that debate other than to say the Minister for Finance outlined the Government's position based on legal realities and on the legislation not achieving what we believed Sinn Féin thought the legislation would achieve. However, there is a hell of a lot we actuall…
I thank Deputy Whitmore for raising this issue. I share her view and her awareness in terms of the anxiety and concern that there is from farmers, climate activists and many people about this Mercosur free trade agreement. I believe we all share the view that free, fair and open trade is something that we in this country support. It is something that we have done well from economically and beyond that. It is an impor…
Our opposition to the agreement is as strong as France's and, potentially, Poland's will be. Let me reflect on whether and when we will formally join that group and revert to the Deputy, but I have been clear in my conversations with the French Government about our opposition. I do not see any sign of the French Government's position changing on that.
Technically, the agreement is undergoing what they call "legal sc…
We are continuing to engage. I had a meeting with my Italian counterpart, Antonio Tajani, a while ago on this. I intend to seek to speak to him again on it because I read some commentary in a report I got back from Italy recently about some broader discussion in Italy on it. I have not heard directly from the minister on it, so I do not wish to misrepresent Italy's position.
In fairness to the European Commission, i…
Ireland’s consistent position remains that we need substantive, calm, measured and comprehensive dialogue with the United States. I am pleased to say this is also the position of the European Union, which has shared a constructive proposal for scoping out a negotiation between the two sides. At the same time, we understand the need for the EU to undertake further internal preparations in case negotiations are unsucce…
I think the Deputy is right and I also hope that is what it is. I learned a long time ago not to respond to every Truth Social post or every tweet. We need to be calm and substantive in our engagement here. I welcome that President von der Leyen and President Trump spoke on the phone the other evening. That provided more of a window of space for engagement. I welcome that engagement.
I also note the federal court ru…