Victor Boyhan
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 | 498 | |
| … spoke in that debate section | 302 | |
| … vote tied to a specific question | 84 | |
| … position stated clearly enough to score | 33 |
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 | 21 | 0 |
| Contradicted their words | 11 | 1 |
Not scored: 218 where the vote could not be tied to a question, 2 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 will be brief. This is a good debate. We have had it before and I am somewhat surprised by the change in position and the moving of chairs. The people who were for this Bill are particularly against it from time to time. I want to acknowledge and thank Senator Malcolm Byrne and his team for preparing what is a very simple Bill and one which I support. I have spoken on it before. I took the time this morning to pull…
Read as support (cue, confidence 0.90) · voted NIL · with their party
I again welcome the Minister to the House. While I did not think it would happen this way, I am particularly pleased that these two amendments are being taken right at the beginning of the debate. For many years I was a councillor on Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council. I know the Minister used to be a councillor, as have many Members of this House. I took a lot of trouble to look at the record of the House and I a…
Read as support (cue, confidence 0.90) · voted NIL · with their party
I welcome the Minister of State, who has overall responsibility for planning. This is a very important aspect of his work. I thank his senior Minister and the other Minister for State for taking various aspects of this Bill. We had a good, healthy, robust engagement on it. The Minister of State will note from the amendments before him that my signature is on the amendment along with those of my colleagues, Senators K…
Read as support (cue, confidence 0.85) · voted NIL · with their party
I welcome the Minister to the House. It is great to see her here. I thank her for coming here to give this matter the attention it deserves. I acknowledge the Civil Engagement Group for its proposal. It is one I support on the basis that the group has made a strong case here on the restrictive nature of the Institutional Burials Act 2022. I want to remember for a moment Catherine Corless, the absolutely fierce object…
Read as support (cue, confidence 0.85) · voted NIL · with their party
I welcome the Minister of State to the House. Given that the senior Minister has now gone, having responded to the amendments, I do not expect the Minister of State to change that. It gives me an opportunity to talk about two of the amendments out of this group before us that are very pertinent to the Minister of State as a member of the Green Party. The Minister, Deputy O'Brien, has dealt with them but I will just t…
Read as oppose (cue, confidence 0.85) · voted TA · against their party
I move amendment No. 108: In page 50, after line 33, to insert the following: “Process and complaints procedure 52. (1) The Minister shall create an appeals process and complaints procedure. The appeals and complaints procedure shall take into account concerns in relation to compliance, problems arising from limited definitions and issues arising regarding institutions not listed in this Act. The appointees shall als…
Read as support (cue, confidence 0.85) · voted NIL · with their party
I do not want to be too provocative but I want to say that I know where Senator Moynihan is coming from. I will use this opportunity to talk about the Phoenix Park. There is vast real estate in the Phoenix Park which I have had the privilege of visiting recently. Many Senators will know that the HSE has St. Mary's Hospital in the Phoenix Park, which has significant issues with dereliction. There is an old military sc…
Read as support (cue, confidence 0.85) · voted NIL · with their party
I do not want to be fighting with the Minister of State and I genuinely look forward to working with him. I also look forward to being on the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government. I do not know if I will be a member of that committee but I hope to be and will do everything I can to make that happen. I think I have a strong record on housing, planning and local government so I just want…
Read as support (cue, confidence 0.80) · voted NIL · with their party
I listened attentively to the Minister's response. I take from it that he does not, in principle, have a difficulty with the objective. He has clearly articulated and identified our objective, which is great, so we are not losing anything in translation there. The Minister will be aware that I asked for a report "Within 12 months". I did not say "every 12 months". Given the nature and the concerns about the Internati…
Read as support (cue, confidence 0.75) · voted NIL · with their party
I move amendment No. 15: In page 7, between lines 13 and 14, to insert the following: “(4) The planning authority shall ensure that the elected members of the Local Authority, Area Committee or Area Committees (established under section 50(1) of the Local Government Act 2001) or municipal district in respect of the area or areas concerned, in which the proposed large-scale residential development would be situated ar…
Read as support (cue, confidence 0.64) · voted NIL · with their party
I move: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time." I warmly welcome the Minister for Social Protection, Deputy Humphreys, to the House. She is somebody who I greatly admire. She is full of common sense and very dynamic. I know she will listen attentively to this debate. While we might disagree, the Minister has a job to do, and I always respect that. I, too, have a job to do and I gave a commitment to the former Sena…
Read as support (cue, confidence 0.45) · voted NIL · with their party
I will comment on today's Order of Business. No. 1 is a motion on the Seanad select committee. I circulated to every Member of this House press coverage from the wonderful RTÉ and its news service, which is an amazing service, and commentary attributed to the Minister of State, Deputy Peter Burke, regarding teething problems - I do not want a list of any teething problems - and talking about statutory instruments whi…
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 | 1,711 | +0.673 | +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 |
|---|---|---|
| Cost of living, tax and budget cost · tax · budget · energy · costs · increase | 5 | +0.244 |
| Party-political exchange (party names dominate) workers · rights · right · sinn · féin · irish | 11 | +0.474 |
| Health scandals, inquiries and bereaved families hospital · families · family · cancer · children · did | 57 | +0.505 |
| Housing, rent and homelessness housing · homes · local · accommodation · rent · affordable | 64 | +0.537 |
| Children, families and young people children · women · young · child · family · families | 47 | +0.559 |
| Health services, HSE and disability health · services · care · service · hse · mental | 48 | +0.595 |
| Justice, policing and defence garda · defence · justice · violence · criminal · gardaí | 6 | +0.611 |
| Local government, roads and regional funding county · cork · discuss · west · road · local | 12 | +0.664 |
| Covid-19 and public health emergency covid · health · public · pandemic · measures · safety | 7 | +0.682 |
| Legislation, courts and legal process act · legislation · shall · court · person · information | 219 | +0.691 |
| War, Ukraine, Israel and human rights international · ireland · ukraine · israel · war · irish | 20 | +0.728 |
| Climate, agriculture, energy and water water · climate · farmers · energy · food · agriculture | 91 | +0.730 |
| Procedural and rhetorical filler (low-content) important · like · good · debate · did · does | 781 | +0.749 |
| Education and schools school · education · schools · children · students · special | 15 | +0.757 |
| Transport, Dublin and rural development local · transport · dublin · city · public · community | 100 | +0.781 |
| Departmental programmes and funding (diffuse) department · national · funding · new · important · programme | 129 | +0.857 |
| Media, banking and State companies ireland · irish · media · industry · companies · post | 18 | +0.892 |
| Employment, welfare schemes and business supports scheme · businesses · payment · sector · employment · insurance | 7 | +0.892 |
| EU and international relations ireland · european · irish · union · europe · countries | 23 | +0.896 |
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 will not spend my time talking about the Bill; I will repeat what I said this morning, namely, that to give this 90 minutes was nothing short of a disgrace. I look forward to talking about it again another day. I did make the case, and clearly there was a ve…
I thank the Minister of State. The one line that jumps off the page in his official written response is that the Westbank was not generally regarded as a mother and baby home but, rather, as an orphanage. What is the difference? Abuse is abuse. Emotional abuse…
I thank the Minister of State for the comprehensive response. It is a little weak but not on his part. I am glad we have had this dialogue because there are derelict sites and a housing crisis. There are motions every second week in the Dáil on the housing cri…
That reply is exceptionally disappointing and simply not good enough. The Minister of State is not in a position to tell me when the Ardrew housing scheme in Athy, County Kildare, will be advanced. It really is appalling. The housing scheme has planning permis…
I appreciate that but I have not had an opportunity to study that when I was listening to the Minister of State's four minutes. I will finish on a few points. Forestry is in crisis. Let us face up to the fact. We are heading into May and no approvals have been…
I move amendment No. 30: In page 17, to delete line 28. My amendment relates to the Taxus baccata or common yew tree. The tree is included in the appendices to the Bill. My only concern is to learn the rationale behind that. We know that the leaves of the Taxu…
I move amendment No. 55: In page 36, between lines 28 and 29, to insert the following: “Transfer from prison where person appears to fulfil criteria for involuntary admission 19. (1) Where a person detained in a prison appears to a registered medical practitio…
I do not say I am disappointed because it is beyond disappointment for me at this stage. However, I do think it needs to happen and it should happen. The Minister started off mentioning trust, and that is very important but, sadly, many of these people have ha…
There are 6,000 properties in the Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council area that are outside the net. At an average local property tax of €675 in the area - it is lower than the real average but we can use it as the figure - this equates to €4 million gone th…
I thank the Cathaoirleach. I have no difficulty with that. The committee made 21 recommendations, including that the six-month residency requirement for children be removed. The committee stated clearly it must be removed. The report was signed off by all thos…
While I recognise that the words in the reply are not those of the Minister of State and that she is responding on behalf of the Minister for Transport, the response is very disappointing. The Minister for Transport is telling us that while it is very nice of …
There is no reassurance in anything the Minister of State has said. We have heard all of it before. He said the Minister is working on developing a scheme "as a matter of priority" and he needs "sufficient time" to do so. The Minister of State is not in a posi…
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.