On prevailing side: this member voted with the winning side in 509 of 516 decisive votes (0 abstentions excluded). Read it as a government-or-opposition indicator rather than a measure of influence — the figure is near 100% for members supporting the government of the day and near 0% for those opposing it.
This is the point of the site: contributions keep the party held on the day, not the one held now.
| Party | Recorded as | Contributions | Period |
|---|---|---|---|
| FF | Fianna Fáil | 19,180 | 2020-02-20 – 2026-09-30 |
Membership spells on record: FF 1989-06-15–1992-11-05 · FF 1992-11-25–1997-05-15 · FF 1997-06-06–2002-04-25 · FF 2002-05-17–2007-04-30 · FF 2007-05-24–2011-02-01 · FF 2011-02-25–2016-03-09 · FF 2016-03-10–2020-01-14 · FF 2020-02-08–2024-11-08 · FF 2024-11-29–present
-----per year across four clinical programmes can be provided. Approximately €6.5 million will meet the full costs. I will get the Department to come back to the Deputy on that.
I thank the Deputy for eloquently and very strongly putting the issues pertaining to what is happening in Gaza in terms of the behaviour of the Israeli Government and Hamas, and stating that action is required. We have taken a series of actions but I take the Deputy's point. The focus now has to be on this EU-Israel Association Agreement because, without any question, Article 2 of that agreement has not been adhered to at all. What is now happening is barbaric. People are appalled at the slaughter of innocent child…
It needs to be expanded. I will talk to the Minister in respect of it. The funding was allocated. There could be issues clinically - I do not know - with the allocation of resources. However, I will ask the Minister to revert to the Deputy in respect of the issue.
I thank the Deputy for raising the issue. As I said, the situation is barbaric. We urgently need to facilitate a high-profile visit by the international community to Gaza, including both political and media representatives, who could see at first hand the level of destruction and the appalling situation the civilian population there is now in. That would do more than anything to change the situation and the momentum of war in Gaza. The occupied territories Bill is being progressed. On its own, it will not change th…
I agree with Deputy O'Donoghue and sympathise with his point. I will again talk to the Minister for Transport on this and ask him to engage with Bus Éireann to get this issue sorted. Chronological age is meaningless as a metric. It can be general but it is meaningless. There could be a very fit 75-year-old and an unfit 65-year-old. To borrow the phrase again, we need a little common sense applied here. On Deputy Whitmore's point, I will talk to the Minister for Education in respect of the specifics in County Wicklo…
The Deputy is saying there is a general problem-----
-----and an insufficiency of general school places.
It is very distressing for them and for their families. I will talk to the Minister in respect of this.
It is hard to find words sufficient for the topic before us. It is hard to describe the immense suffering, physical and psychological, that civilian Palestinians in the Gaza Strip have endured for more than 19 months: to never feel safe; to be uprooted time and time again; to feel the desperation that comes from not being able to find food for your children; to see your elderly parents and grandparents suffer rather than having the comfort and dignity that should come with age; to carry your disabled child mile aft…
On point of order, I did not say that.
The Deputy is misleading the House. That is not right, now.
On a point of order, the Deputy misled the House when she said that I described the tabling of Sinn Féin's legislation as repulsive. I said no such thing. I would ask the Deputy to withdraw that given the seriousness of the debate. This is a very serious debate involving lives and it is not good enough that the Deputy would falsely make that assertion. I did not say that and she knows I did not say that. I ask the Deputy to withdraw it.
It is very easy to check.
The Deputy said that the Government is funding a genocide and I said that phrase was morally repugnant. At no stage did I say the tabling of legislation in respect of the Central Bank was repulsive. You know that. Why did you conflate the two to make a false statement? I would ask you to withdraw.
I ask you to withdraw.
It was a smear against me.
No sincerity.
At the outset, I appreciate the work Cara Darmody has been doing and her campaigning work with her father, Mark. She has been campaigning for quite some time. She initially began to do so in terms of advocacy for her family and now does so nationally in respect of disability rights more generally. When I was appointed Taoiseach earlier in the year, I committed that this would be a Government that would make a step change, comprehensively and across all areas of government, in provision for people with special needs…
The Deputy has offered no solution. She has offered rhetoric, and that is all.
The bottom line is this. We will do everything we simply can to deal with the existing waiting lists and so forth. There has been a significant increase in the numbers of assessments that have actually taken place - a 30% increase on 2023 - but that in itself will not deal with the current situation. We have to have a multifaceted response. We need more therapists in third level colleges.