688. Deputy Barry Heneghan asked the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage the reason commercial properties held through company ownership structures are excluded from eligibility under the croí cónaithe above the shop scheme; if his Department has examined the extent to which this eligibility restriction may affect uptake of the scheme, particularly in Dublin city where many commercial premises are com…
Topics / Departmental Schemes
A subject heading for parliamentary questionsDepartmental Schemes
1,518 questions from 134 TDs, between 22 January 2025 and 22 October 2026.
1,518
questions
1,497 written, 21 oral
134
TDs have asked
11
parties and groups
Independents counted together
20
departments asked
This is one of the catch-all headings the Oireachtas uses for how a department runs rather than what a question is about, so it is left out of the range and focus figures.
Questions per month
The record holds no questions for August, when the Dáil does not sit.
Jan 2025Oct 2026
Show as a table
| Month | Questions |
|---|---|
| January 2025 | 8 |
| February 2025 | 37 |
| March 2025 | 80 |
| April 2025 | 88 |
| May 2025 | 73 |
| June 2025 | 91 |
| July 2025 | 90 |
| August 2025 | 0 |
| September 2025 | 88 |
| October 2025 | 33 |
| November 2025 | 91 |
| December 2025 | 55 |
| January 2026 | 31 |
| February 2026 | 82 |
| March 2026 | 58 |
| April 2026 | 107 |
| May 2026 | 150 |
| June 2026 | 69 |
| July 2026 | 117 |
| August 2026 | 0 |
| September 2026 | 108 |
| October 2026 | 62 |
Who asks, by party
The party each TD belonged to on the day, in alphabetical order. Parties differ a lot in size, and members of the Government answer questions rather than ask them, so this shows who raised it, not how much a party cares about it.
The TDs who asked most
Members of the Government answer questions rather than ask them. Each question counts once.
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146
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51
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44
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42
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40
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35
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34
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30
Asked of
Debated under the same heading
Debates whose official heading is exactly these words.
The questions
689. Deputy Barry Heneghan asked the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage if his Department has undertaken a review of the operation, uptake and effectiveness of the croí cónaithe above the shop scheme; if barriers to participation, including ownership structure requirements and refurbishment costs, have been identified as factors affecting application levels; and if he will make a statement on the mat…
690. Deputy Barry Heneghan asked the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage the number of enquiries, applications, approvals, refusals and completed projects recorded by each local authority under the croí cónaithe above the shop scheme since its establishment; the total value of grants approved and paid in each case, in tabular form. [39308/26]
713. Deputy Pádraig Rice asked the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage to respond to matters raised in correspondence (details supplied); if his Department will intervene directly in this case; if his Department is aware of such issues in other local authorities; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [39841/26]
714. Deputy Thomas Gould asked the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage when he will introduce staged payments for the derelict properties grant. [39875/26]
724. Deputy Conor Sheehan asked the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage the rationale for restricting the vacant above-the-shop grant and the broader vacant property refurbishment grant to individual applicants only, explicitly excluding registered micro-companies; if he acknowledges that advising property owners to undertake complex and costly corporate restructuring to transfer assets into personal …
725. Deputy Conor Sheehan asked the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage if he plans to introduce interim measures, exemptions, or a phased pilot scheme to allow micro-companies to access the vacant above-the-shop grant where planning, funding, and construction readiness are already established; the timeline for reviewing these eligibility criteria; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [39962…
1087. Deputy Ivana Bacik asked the Minister for Children, Disability and Equality the position regarding the national childcare scheme (NCS), in particular on circumstances arising in a situation (details supplied); and her plans to amend section 4(3) of the Childcare Support Act 2018 to ensure that the NCS is flexible and responsive to families’ needs in practice by treating registered hours as a ceiling rather than…
1242. Deputy Ken O'Flynn asked the Minister for Health whether any expenditure threshold exists within the treatment abroad scheme above which additional managerial, financial, legal or executive approval is required prior to authorisation of treatment abroad. [39141/26]
1243. Deputy Ken O'Flynn asked the Minister for Health whether the treatment abroad scheme operates any formal distinction between clinical eligibility approval and financial expenditure approval; and if so, to provide details of the separate approval pathway. [39136/26]
1244. Deputy Ken O'Flynn asked the Minister for Health the grade, title or officeholder responsible for final authorisation of individual treatment abroad scheme applications involving projected expenditure above €100,000. [39137/26]
1245. Deputy Ken O'Flynn asked the Minister for Health whether any internal audit, value-for-money review or external governance review of high-cost treatment abroad scheme approvals has been conducted since 2020; and if so, to provide details and findings. [39138/26]
1246. Deputy Ken O'Flynn asked the Minister for Health whether the HSE maintains a register of the highest-cost treatments approved annually under the treatment abroad scheme and the aggregate annual expenditure associated with such approvals. [39139/26]
1247. Deputy Ken O'Flynn asked the Minister for Health whether her Department receives routine reporting on high-cost approvals under the treatment abroad scheme, including cumulative expenditure, approval volumes and exceptional-case expenditure. [39140/26]
1248. Deputy Ken O'Flynn asked the Minister for Health whether the 2022 Comptroller and Auditor General audit referenced in relation to the treatment abroad scheme constituted a full scheme audit or a sample-based review; and if she will provide the scope, methodology and findings of same. [39135/26]
1249. Deputy Ken O'Flynn asked the Minister for Health whether any internal audit reports, governance reviews, expenditure-control assessments, or value-for-money evaluations relating to the treatment abroad scheme have been conducted by the HSE, Department of Health, Internal Audit, National Financial Regulations Office, or any external body since 2020; and if she will provide details of same. [39142/26]
1250. Deputy Ken O'Flynn asked the Minister for Health whether the treatment abroad scheme appears on any HSE or Departmental corporate risk register, strategic risk register, or internal assurance framework; and if so, the risks identified. [39143/26]
1251. Deputy Ken O'Flynn asked the Minister for Health whether the treatment abroad scheme operates any formal benchmarking process comparing the cost of equivalent procedures across jurisdictions prior to authorisation approval. [39144/26]
1253. Deputy Ken O'Flynn asked the Minister for Health whether any fraud-prevention, duplicate-payment detection, or abnormal expenditure-monitoring system is operated in respect of the treatment abroad scheme. [39146/26]
1254. Deputy Ken O'Flynn asked the Minister for Health whether any internal threshold, trigger mechanism or anomaly detection system exists within the treatment abroad scheme to identify unusually high-cost invoices received from healthcare providers in other EU/EEA states. [39149/26]
1255. Deputy Ken O'Flynn asked the Minister for Health whether the HSE has ever formally disputed, queried, challenged or sought clarification regarding the cost of treatment invoiced under the treatment abroad scheme by another EU/EEA healthcare system; and if she will provide the number of such cases since 2020. [39150/26]
1256. Deputy Ken O'Flynn asked the Minister for Health whether the HSE maintains any comparative database or benchmarking framework examining the average cost of equivalent procedures between different EU/EEA healthcare systems under the treatment abroad scheme. [39151/26]
1257. Deputy Ken O'Flynn asked the Minister for Health whether any value-for-money analysis has been conducted comparing expenditure under the treatment abroad scheme against the cost of developing equivalent treatment capacity domestically. [39153/26]
1258. Deputy Ken O'Flynn asked the Minister for Health whether any internal financial escalation process exists within the HSE or Department of Health for treatment abroad scheme cases exceeding specified expenditure levels; and if she will provide details of the approval pathway applying in such cases. [39154/26]
1259. Deputy Ken O'Flynn asked the Minister for Health whether the treatment abroad scheme operates under any internal delegated financial authority limits; and if she will provide the approval thresholds applying at local, national and departmental level. [39155/26]