Lisa Chambers
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 | 278 | |
| … spoke in that debate section | 104 | |
| … vote tied to a specific question | 46 | |
| … position stated clearly enough to score | 8 |
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 | 4 | 0 |
Not scored: 58 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 support (cue, confidence 0.90) · voted NIL · with their party
I thank all Senators who contributed to the Order of Business. The first to speak today was Senator Clifford-Lee who again raised the issue of Natasha O’Brien's case that was spoken about by almost every Member yesterday as well. I concur with her remarks on the incredible bravery and leadership Natasha has shown in not just advocating for herself but for women and other victims across the country. It was well put ye…
Read as oppose (cue, confidence 0.85) · voted TA · with their party
It is quite difficult to hold the Bill when standing because it is so large. I have listened to many of the contributions. There is much food for thought in what has been said. I am conscious that the Bill has been four years in the making, so it was not brought here in a rush. However, it contains a great deal. I will respond to some of the comments made by Senator Higgins and Senator McDowell on the planning statem…
Read as oppose (cue, confidence 0.80) · voted TA · with their party
The first person to speak was Senator Ardagh who congratulated Senator Carrigy, as did most Members this morning, on the fantastic achievement by the Oireachtas, which was really driven by Joint Committee on Autism chaired by Senator Carrigy, and other colleagues as well, in particular, Senator Ardagh, who put much work into educating all of us on the importance of being more inclusive as a Parliament and leading the…
Read as support (cue, confidence 0.75) · voted NIL · with their party
I thank my colleague, Senator Ardagh, for sharing her time. I welcome the Minister to the Chamber and welcome this opportunity to have a conversation on the cost of living. There are some aspects of the motion that merit discussion and consideration. I am not sure that reducing income tax is the best way to achieve a reduction in childcare costs or medical bills. If we reduce income tax at the same time, that would b…
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 | 807 | +0.526 | +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 | 7 | +0.073 |
| Children, families and young people children · women · young · child · family · families | 16 | +0.175 |
| War, Ukraine, Israel and human rights international · ireland · ukraine · israel · war · irish | 23 | +0.265 |
| Justice, policing and defence garda · defence · justice · violence · criminal · gardaí | 28 | +0.323 |
| Housing, rent and homelessness housing · homes · local · accommodation · rent · affordable | 6 | +0.364 |
| Legislation, courts and legal process act · legislation · shall · court · person · information | 169 | +0.364 |
| Health services, HSE and disability health · services · care · service · hse · mental | 12 | +0.402 |
| Local government, roads and regional funding county · cork · discuss · west · road · local | 13 | +0.504 |
| Transport, Dublin and rural development local · transport · dublin · city · public · community | 19 | +0.532 |
| Education and schools school · education · schools · children · students · special | 14 | +0.658 |
| Procedural and rhetorical filler (low-content) important · like · good · debate · did · does | 349 | +0.690 |
| Covid-19 and public health emergency covid · health · public · pandemic · measures · safety | 18 | +0.722 |
| Cost of living, tax and budget cost · tax · budget · energy · costs · increase | 7 | +0.775 |
| Media, banking and State companies ireland · irish · media · industry · companies · post | 5 | +0.781 |
| Departmental programmes and funding (diffuse) department · national · funding · new · important · programme | 17 | +0.811 |
| Climate, agriculture, energy and water water · climate · farmers · energy · food · agriculture | 6 | +0.823 |
| Employment, welfare schemes and business supports scheme · businesses · payment · sector · employment · insurance | 12 | +0.847 |
| EU and international relations ireland · european · irish · union · europe · countries | 41 | +0.888 |
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.
There is a much lower incidence of breast cancer in men but it is important that we all become breast aware. The photograph was followed by an informative briefing in the audiovisual room, which was given by cancer nurses from the Irish Cancer Society who gave…
It is vitally important that at the first opportunity in this Chamber we rise to our feet and raise with the Minister of State at the Department of Justice, Deputy Browne, the recent horrific and tragic killing of Ashling Murphy. Our hearts go out to her famil…
I move: That Seanad Éireann: - unreservedly condemns the brutal attack by Hamas in Israel on Saturday, 7th October 2023, indiscriminately and systematically targeting civilians, and resulting in over 1,400 deaths; - emphasises that the deliberate taking of hos…
It says a lot, in my view. The Minister of State also referred to the case of the DPP v. Doherty, where Mr. Justice Peter Charleton in his 2020 judgment stated, "Harassment was made an offence by s 10 of the Non-Fatal Offences Against the Person Act 1997." Tha…
I move: That leave be granted to introduce a Bill entitled an Act to provide for a specific offence of stalking characterised by repeated, unwanted behaviour that occurs as a result of fixation or obsession and causes alarm, distress or harm to the victim and …
The Order of Business is No. 1, Garda Síochána (Recording Devices) Bill 2022 - Report and Final Stages, to be taken at 12.45 p.m. and to adjourn at 2.45 p.m., if not previously concluded; No. 2, Electricity Costs (Emergency Measures) Domestic Accounts Bill 202…
I propose that we have a minute's silence on behalf of Members of Seanad Éireann to acknowledge the loss of life in both Israel and Palestine and in Gaza over the weekend and the last couple of days. We send our thoughts and prayers to the families and communi…
For the information of Members, I will move a motion for expressions of sympathy once the Order of Business for today has been agreed. The Order of Business is No. 1, address to Seanad Éireann by Ms Annita Demetriou, President of the House of Representatives o…
Senator Moynihan's amendment addresses a particular issue with access to affordable housing by single people, single-parent households and households in which only one individual is working. It is more difficult for such households. All of us know from our own…
I move: (1) That, notwithstanding anything in the Standing Orders relative to Public Business, the Seanad on its rising on Tuesday, 6th July, 2021, shall adjourn until 9.30 a.m. on Friday, 9th July, 2021, in the Dáil Chamber, and unless otherwise ordered, the …
The Order of Business today is No. 1, Health (Assisted Human Reproduction) Bill 2022 - Committee Stage (resumed) and Remaining Stages, to be taken at 1.15 p.m. and the proceedings thereon shall, if not previously concluded, be brought to a conclusion by 4 p.m.…
I will make a final plea. When looking at the rail network map for the country, an entire region - the west and north west - does not feature. County Donegal has no rail link, County Monaghan has no rail link and the service to County Mayo is fairly limited, y…
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.