Darragh O'Brien
The measure only exists where this member actually spoke in the debate their vote belongs to, and where that vote can be tied to a specific question. Both cuts are steep.
| Votes cast | 1,058 | |
| … spoke in that debate section | 62 | |
| … vote tied to a specific question | 29 | |
| … position stated clearly enough to score | 14 |
The third row is the sharpest cut. A committee-stage sitting can hold fifteen divisions while its speeches discuss forty-two numbered amendments, and the record does not say which amendment each division was. Those votes are counted here and deliberately left unscored rather than guessed.
The same scorable votes, split by whether the member went with their party. The top-right cell is the one worth reading: a stated position reversed while following the party line.
| Voted with own party | Voted against own party | |
|---|---|---|
| Matched their words | 4 | 0 |
| Contradicted their words | 10 | 0 |
Not scored: 33 where the vote could not be tied to a question, 0 where no clear position was stated in the debate.
Every case the pipeline flagged, with the contribution it read and the vote as recorded. Judge them yourself — that is the point of showing them rather than only the rate.
Read as oppose (cue, confidence 0.90) · voted TA · with their party
I thank the Deputies who have contributed. I will not go over the old points but will address some of the issues. I completely reject Deputy Connolly's remarks. In no way, shape or form are we taking anyone out of the planning process. Third-party observations are totally and utterly respected, and rightly so. Normal people, residents' associations and environmental groups do exceptionally important work for us to en…
Read as oppose (cue, confidence 0.90) · voted TA · with their party
The public knows that too. Let us show some respect to voters. That respect should extend to the fact that when Members bring forward alternatives, they should stack up and be implementable. If you support social housing across this country, do not object to it. Do not let your councillors object time after time or find any reason to object. Do not vote against legislation that will fast-track the delivery of social …
Read as oppose (cue, confidence 0.90) · voted TA · with their party
I will try to explain a few things in order to be helpful to Deputies. I will refer back to Deputy Boyd Barrett first, and then the other Deputies. We are dealing with the reality of the situation right now, which is that housing is not affordable for tens of thousands of people across the State. This legislation will bring about a national affordable purchase scheme and, pretty much for the first time ever, a nation…
Read as oppose (cue, confidence 0.90) · voted TA · with their party
I will certainly engage directly with my colleague, Deputy O'Dowd, on that issue if anything can be done to assist in that regard by way of clarification, particularly around the process. Basic minimum standards must be adhered to and there should never be a situation where people are knowingly left living in substandard accommodation. I have taken note of the points he raised and I will engage directly with the Depu…
Read as oppose (cue, confidence 0.85) · voted TA · with their party
I thank the Deputies who put forward their amendments. First, to restate what the Ceann Comhairle said, I have nothing to do with whether amendments are ruled in or our of order. Deputy Whitmore, in particular, made that case, and Deputy Cronin less so. That is a matter for the Ceann Comhairle's office and completely independent of me. Can we just put in context why we are here? In March 2025, the Government approved…
Read as oppose (cue, confidence 0.80) · voted TA · with their party
I thank my colleagues for amendments Nos. 1 and 2, which I am taking together. At the outset, I appreciate the support for this important legislation. We are about to embark on the largest and most significant investment in the grid infrastructure, pretty much in the history of the State and certainly since rural electrification. This Bill is an important part of that because it allows an increase in borrowing and it…
Read as oppose (cue, confidence 0.80) · voted TA · with their party
Deputy O'Callaghan, Deputy Matthews and I discussed at length the amendments we made in respect of biodiversity and the amendment we brought forward in respect of that. I will first address amendment No. 1 to amendment No. 140, proposed by Deputy Ó Broin. This amendment seeks to include a reference to supporting compliance with the wildlife obligations of public authorities under section 59B of that Act and introduce…
Read as oppose (cue, confidence 0.80) · voted TA · with their party
I have not moved amendment No. 13 yet but I might address some of the points raised on it and also address amendments Nos. 1 to 12. Deputy Boyd Barrett moved all 12 of those amendments and I will address them first. I thank Deputies for taking the time to table amendments and for a comprehensive debate, both on Second and Committee Stages. As the Chairman of the committee, Deputy Matthews, mentioned, we went through …
Read as oppose (cue, confidence 0.80) · voted TA · with their party
For the genuine information of Deputy McGrath, no one is looking for an extension in this grouping of amendments. I will put section 4 in context first, and then I will deal with some of the queries and points raised by other Members. It might be helpful if I set out the purpose of section 4 of the Bill. I wish to make it clear to those who tabled amendments on behalf of the Opposition, however, that I will not be ac…
Read as oppose (cue, confidence 0.40) · voted TA · with their party
I move amendment No. 3: In page 5, after line 26, to insert the following: “Amendment of section 4 of Act of 2000 3. Section 4(1) of the Act of 2000 is amended by the insertion of the following paragraph after paragraph (f): “(fa) development to which section 179A applies;”.”. I propose to address Government amendments Nos. 3, 42, 43 and 49 together, starting with amendment No. 42. This amendment proposes to amend se…
Valence runs −1 (negative) to +1 (positive). This is a separate measure from alignment above and says nothing about how anyone voted — "the Minister has been asleep at the wheel" is strongly negative and carries no position on the question.
| Model | Speeches scored | Mean valence | Corpus mean |
|---|---|---|---|
| vader | 2,137 | +0.620 | +0.423 |
Mean tone by topic, most negative first. Topics come from an LDA model fitted over debate contributions; the terms are the model's, the labels are hand-assigned.
| Topic | Speeches | Mean valence |
|---|---|---|
| Health scandals, inquiries and bereaved families hospital · families · family · cancer · children · did | 5 | +0.072 |
| Cost of living, tax and budget cost · tax · budget · energy · costs · increase | 18 | +0.436 |
| Irish-language contributions (sorted by language, not policy) agus · seo · leis · sin · atá · bhfuil | 9 | +0.464 |
| Party-political exchange (party names dominate) workers · rights · right · sinn · féin · irish | 5 | +0.482 |
| Employment, welfare schemes and business supports scheme · businesses · payment · sector · employment · insurance | 9 | +0.648 |
| Legislation, courts and legal process act · legislation · shall · court · person · information | 178 | +0.655 |
| Housing, rent and homelessness housing · homes · local · accommodation · rent · affordable | 248 | +0.672 |
| Transport, Dublin and rural development local · transport · dublin · city · public · community | 16 | +0.677 |
| Covid-19 and public health emergency covid · health · public · pandemic · measures · safety | 19 | +0.682 |
| Procedural and rhetorical filler (low-content) important · like · good · debate · did · does | 115 | +0.697 |
| Departmental programmes and funding (diffuse) department · national · funding · new · important · programme | 123 | +0.776 |
| Climate, agriculture, energy and water water · climate · farmers · energy · food · agriculture | 15 | +0.845 |
Contributions whose tone sits more than two standard deviations from this member's own average. Baselines are per member on purpose — an absolute threshold would just rank people by temperament.
I agree with the Deputy that what is happening in Gaza, and now in the West Bank as well, is extreme, horrific and horrendous. It is totally and utterly disproportionate. What the State of Israel is doing in the destruction of Gaza, the killing of women, child…
I once again join the Deputy in her condemnation and the House's condemnation of the absolutely despicable actions that the Israeli state is undertaking, not just in Gaza, which it has flattened, with more than 40,000 people killed, many of whom are children, …
The Residential Tenancies Board, RTB, published its quarterly report on 2 October and within that are some of the facts that pertain to the positive effect within the market of the new protections and the new legislation the Government brought forward. As a re…
As colleagues have said, across the board there has been shock and horror expressed at the injuries inflicted on small children and a brave crèche worker last Thursday afternoon. Like everyone here today, I send my best wishes to them and their families. They …
I understand the thrust of the amendment but I must oppose it as section 44 will seek to provide that a failure to comply with building control regulations is grounds for a complaint. That is outside the scope of this Bill. The register is a register of compet…
I thank Deputy Tóibín for his question. The Deputy will understand why I will not refer to a specific case, but every death of a person accessing homeless services is an absolute tragedy. My condolences and those of the Government go to that gentleman, his fam…
I saw the attacks on the campaign of Ejiro O'Hare-Stratton and the racist tropes that are being thrown at new Irish people and communities. Thankfully, more people from our diverse society are running for local authorities across all parties and none. All of u…
The Deputy is right but we do have a way of doing this now. As I mentioned, the UNECE Working Party on Lighting and Light-Signalling is going to establish that task force. That had to be done looking at European standards as opposed to British standards. As I …
If the Deputy has any information or facts around landlords who are trying to circumvent regulations, he should bring it to the attention of the RTB. Since the RTB was empowered to initiate sanctions against landlords, it has processed information in relation …
Yesterday evening we brought forward the fifth piece of tenancy and rental legislation since I was appointed Minister. We have been to the fore in the areas of rent and protection for tenants. Last August, when we exited out of the blanket ban on evictions tha…
I thank all of the Deputies for their contributions on this and I will keep the House informed. It is a priority matter for us. We looked at trying to assess how we would quantify the scale of it but, from dealing with advocacy groups, particularly in the area…
I am aware of the regulations and the legislation. The Chicago convention of 1944 is the main international treaty that governs the operation of international civil aviation. Article 35 of that convention provides that no civil aircraft may carry munitions of …
Alignment by the party a member sat for on the day, with 95% Wilson intervals. This is the test the measure could have failed.
| Party | Aligned | 95% CI | n |
|---|---|---|---|
| PBP | 82.5% | 68–91% | 40 |
| LAB | 78.2% | 69–85% | 101 |
| IND | 76.5% | 72–81% | 327 |
| SF | 75.8% | 69–81% | 198 |
| SD | 71.4% | 58–82% | 49 |
| FG | 69.1% | 62–76% | 162 |
| FF | 67.9% | 60–75% | 165 |
| GP | 56.8% | 41–71% | 37 |
Members of government parties align their stated position with their vote 9.4 points less often than Independents — bootstrap 95% CI [+2.7, +16.0], which excludes zero. Opposition parties sit 9.5 points above government too, CI [+3.1, +15.9]. Independents and opposition members are indistinguishable from each other (−0.0 points, CI [−6.3, +6.2]). So the gap does not come from having no party; it comes from being in government, which is what a whip effect should look like. Read this as the measure behaving sensibly, not as a finding about any individual.
Two automated methods were built and both failed. What survives is the rule-based layer, which is why the coverage above is narrow.
| Method | Accuracy | 95% CI | n |
|---|---|---|---|
| nli-vs-mover-anchor:deberta | 35.9% | 29–42% | 234 |
| nli-vs-mover-anchor:distilroberta | 11.5% | 8–16% | 234 |
Zero-shot entailment was asked to judge contributions whose true position is known — the member moved the amendment, so the answer is support by construction — and got it right 11.5% of the time, returning "unclear" or "oppose" for nearly everything. A classifier trained on the rule-labelled cases over the corpus embeddings reached 71.1% against a 65.3% majority-class baseline: better than chance, not better enough. Both are excluded from every figure on this page. Only the rule-based cascade, which is exact where it fires and silent where it does not, is used.
Position is read from the member's own contributions in the debate section the division belongs to, by a three-step cascade: an explicit move of the question ("I move amendment No. 5", true by construction); declarative stance phrases ordered so negations are tested first, because "I cannot support" and "I do not oppose" both defeat a naive keyword match; and, where neither fires, a zero-shot entailment model judging the contribution against the question put. Tone uses a separate model and is reported separately. Agreement against hand-labelled cases, with bootstrap intervals, is on the evidence page; no score here should be read without it.