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Dail Éireann · 2026-06-18

Social Welfare Payments

SF Louise O'Reilly · Dublin Fingal West · An Cathaoirleach Gníomhach

Party shown is the one held on 2026-06-18, frozen at parse time — not the speaker's party today.

Summary of this debate

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I thank the Cathaoirleach Gníomhach for being very fair. I am taking this question on behalf of my colleague, Teachta Rose Conway-Walsh. It is to ask the Minister for Social Protection if he has plans to improve turnaround times on decisions regarding applications for supplementary welfare allowance to cover transport costs for going to hospital appointments for patients who may receive an appointment at short notice and do not necessarily have the time to wait for a decision.

I am going to engage with Deputy Conway-Walsh and any other rural TD, in particular, who may have other examples in this space. I am very much aware of people getting appointments at short notice and - this is a real bugbear of mine - people getting appointments at a time that they have to stay overnight the night before because they cannot get transport.

Built by scoring every sentence in the debate on how distinctive its language is, then quoting the highest-scoring ones back word for word and in the order spoken. Nothing is paraphrased or invented — if a sentence appears here, it was said in the chamber. Drawn from 81 words across 3 contributions by 2 speakers.

Most used terms in this debate

How often each word appears across the whole debate, ranked by how distinctive it is to this debate rather than common to all parliamentary language.

conway-walsh 3
appointments 3
bugbear 1
notice 2
space 2
turnaround 1
short 2
gníomhach 1
transport 2
rose 1
engage 2
overnight 1

The full debate

All 3 contributions, start to finish, in the order they were made. The one you came here for is highlighted.

SF Louise O'Reilly

I thank the Cathaoirleach Gníomhach for being very fair. I am taking this question on behalf of my colleague, Teachta Rose Conway-Walsh. It is to ask the Minister for Social Protection if he has plans to improve turnaround times on decisions regarding applications for supplementary welfare allowance to cover transport costs for going to hospital appointments for patients who may receive an appointment at short notice and do not necessarily have the time to wait for a decision.

FF Dara Calleary

The answer is "Yes". I am going to engage with Deputy Conway-Walsh and any other rural TD, in particular, who may have other examples in this space. I am very much aware of people getting appointments at short notice and - this is a real bugbear of mine - people getting appointments at a time that they have to stay overnight the night before because they cannot get transport. I will engage directly with Deputy Conway-Walsh in relation to her proposal in this space.

SF Louise O'Reilly this contribution

Gabhaim buíochas leis an Aire.