Micheál Martin
Cork South-Central · Fianna Fáil · Ireland
“At the beginning of April, the Government approved the establishment of the Cork city futures group to guide development of Cork city for the future.”
“We have to have a budget that reflects the need to sustain that level of work in our economy so that people will have access to jobs. The AI issue is causing a lot of concern. I take heart from the investment announced by Intel this week, which will be AI-propelled, actually.”
“Dublin City Council is progressing the establishment of this new legal entity, in line with the timelines laid out in the roadmap; a ten-year integrated area strategy for Dublin city centre to optimise funding and investment and tackle vacancy and dereliction; and accelerated delivery of landmark capital projects in the city centre throug…”
“I propose to take Questions Nos. 15 to 30, inclusive, together. This will be a long answer because there is one task group and one futures group.”
“I think Deputy Hayes was being a bit petty, if that is the word I am looking for, in what he said about Spain. Well, using the word "petty" might be a bit uncharitable today. It is more a Spain is more vociferous than us kind of thing. We have worked very well together on the Middle East. It is a very serious issue.”
“A dedicated body, to be known as The Cork City Futures Group, will work to unlock the city’s full economic, cultural and academic potential, alongside further investment, innovation and infrastructure. I think people are familiar with the terms of reference.”
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“I will look at that because I think we should be in a position. Very often the health service is not responsive because it wants to do general approaches to supports but I have often had a view that visually impaired and hearing impaired should be carved out somewhat, particularly where it facilitates employment. We should really support employment. We do not do that as well as we should. I will pursue the matter Deputy Whitmore raised. Was it health guidance? They should be banned from schools in my view.”
“I want to join with the Deputy in expressing sympathy to the family of Brian Sugrue, who I met myself and knew. He was a very strong advocate for such a unit in Kerry hospital. I know he was a very close friend and confidante of Deputy Cahill. We sympathise with the Deputy too on his loss and the loss in the area. If Deputy Ó Murchú could give me an extended note on that case, email it to me or whatever, it is an interesting case. I am very interested in finding out examples of where we are not looking after those in the deaf community or the visually impaired community. These are very serious, lifelong disabilities, to lose your sight or to lose hearing. I think we can do better, particularly on the employment front. It is great that this couple are working. The Deputy is saying that the cost for them for the hearing aid is €5,800.”
“I appreciate that he will be pursuing and advocating on behalf of them. On the 24-7 cardiac care, I will have to go back with the Minister. The commitment is there. I remember it going through Cabinet last year. We were told by clinicians for a long time and all the expert groups that it could not be done. Now it can be done, following the reviews, and I am determined that we pursue it and fulfil it. There has been progress made in terms of extension of the cover and all that. The commitment has been made and we will pursue that. I jumped ahead there. Deputy Michael Cahill is saying there needs to be a stand-alone unit for Kerry hospital in Tralee. Again I would support that. I think there is a project in train there, as the Deputy articulated. I will talk to the Minister in respect of that.”
“It clarifies the issue. I will pursue it. I do not think that should happen. I think we need certainty. If we are putting something into a capital programme in 2025, it should be in there in 2026 if it has not been progressed. I will pursue that with the Minister and with the HSE. Roscommon has proven itself to be a very good hospital for services. I remember the row we had back in 2016 on the emergency department. If we are all honest, once that row was dispensed with, the hospital got on with a whole load of services that have proven of real value to the people of the area and this clearly would be another. I thank Deputy Cullinane for welcoming the €50 million for the surgical hub. He followed that up with a list of about four other projects that need to be completed as well.”
“I could not disagree with what the Deputy is saying. If you are onsite it is more seamless and faster, and better facilitates everybody working together on the situation. I will explore that and see what we can do. It is a good hospital, St. Luke's, with a very good track record in many areas and always was an innovative hospital in terms of how they do things. To Deputy Martin Daly, I will have to investigate----”
“One of those was an apology in respect of the boarded-out and we are going to be faithful to the agreement that we reached. The survivors concerned had been notified in respect of this. We will proceed with that tomorrow. To Deputy Peter "Chap" Cleere, the issue is that it is offsite. Is there a project in place to bring it back onsite or are we at a greenfield situation?”
“I do not dispute that. There can be a general argument as to where one contracts Covid, given the prevalence of Covid in society more generally. In the early part of Covid, there was no question that many healthcare professionals contracted it onsite in the hospitals. While one can never be totally definitive on that, it is a fairly plausible scenario that many did, particularly in the earlier phase when we had lockdowns and so on. Particular variants were more infectious than other variants. I will revisit this. To Deputy O'Rourke, that is tomorrow and it is in respect of the issues. The services are going to be provided. My understanding is that they are available. Obviously there will be a lead-in. There was a list of issues that were raised in the discussions I had with the group.”
“I might take that offline with the Deputy and we will see if we can pursue it. Deputy Quaide raised the issue of long Covid. I would be open to meeting the group again. I did meet with the group last June, as the Deputy said. He knows the narrative in terms of the position in that the Labour Court made a ruling in respect of this. I will again engage with the Ministers responsible. There are complexities around consequentials and so on like that. The healthcare service and the Department of public expenditure are saying that the public service sick leave scheme follows then, which is full pay for three months followed by half pay for three months. I get that the issue is the capacity of people with long Covid to participate in the workforce and the fact that it was, without question in my view, contracted on the hospital site.”
“I am not clear but I would have hoped that there was a multidisciplinary team that would oversee the conduct of biopsies, either recommending them or not recommending them with a view to both the diagnosis and also the trauma on the child and the potential implications, negatively, obviously, as the Deputy has outlined and articulated.”
“To a certain extent, if there was that many applying, we should see how best we can use that talent pool for the disciplines because we need more and more people and we need more multidisciplinary teams. Part of the issue with psychiatry was the absence of multidisciplinary teams historically in the mental health arena. I am very open to that and will talk to the Minister in respect of it. Deputy Murphy raised what I consider to be a horrific story, a very sad story for the family, a very challenging and traumatic diagnosis. For it to be followed by the biopsy and so on - I cannot clinically call that. I presume that was CHI?”
“The other key challenge has been clinical placements in terms of people pursuing various disciplines. We are expanding that too. This morning, the Minister received further sanction for additional places in all our third level colleges in respect of medicine and allied healthcare professionals. The Deputy had a specific query in terms of clinical psychology and the short number of places. Again, you cannot overnight turn nine into 25 or 30 because we need lots of capacities downstream to facilitate, both within the college and in terms of clinical placements and so on. I will raise the issue with the Minister for higher education in respect of clinical psychology itself.”
“There have been challenges in transforming that student cohort into a workforce subsequently. That is just reality. There is no point in nodding your head; that is it.”
“I thank the Deputies for the questions. We began with Deputy Boyd Barrett in terms of special needs mental health and basically the recruitment issue. Yes, recruitment is the issue. We have allocated resources and what has stymied our endeavour to expand capacity has been actual recruitment itself. In fact, going back over the last two decades, we have increased places fairly significantly in allied healthcare professionals, particularly in the therapists, for example. Of those who graduate, not all go into the health services. Many go elsewhere. Some go abroad, some go into different services. There is an issue there in terms of those additional places that we are creating in third level and have expanded places. Even in Northern Ireland we have procured places from the third level colleges there.”
“Funding of €1.54 billion has been made available to the HSE in 2026 for health capital expenditure. Building and equipment projects include surgical hubs, elective treatment centres, the National Children’s Hospital Ireland and the National Maternity Hospital. Transformative digital projects include the HSE's health app, the national shared care record and the development of the national electronic health record. Disability capital projects include residential, respite and day services. In addition, in 2026, €43 million has been provided to support specialist community-based disability services, representing a €16 million increase in funding on 2025.”
“All these commitments build on the investment and reforms undertaken over the past number of years, including the delivery of approximately 1,480 acute beds; an increased workforce of approximately 32,000 since 2020; more affordable healthcare through reductions in the drug payment scheme threshold to €80; removal of hospital inpatient charges; extension of the eligibility for free GP cards for all children under eight and to all earning no more than the median income; State-funded in vitro fertilisation, IVF; free contraception for women aged 17 to 35; and free access to hormone replacement therapies, HRT. The Government will continue to invest in reform, changing the way health services deliver this year and into the future. The HSE capital plan 2026 and the HSE digital for care plan were approved by Government this morning.”
“In disability, budget 2026 allocated a record €3.8 billion to the HSE for the provision of specialist disability services. This 20% year-on-year increase will provide permanent and dedicated funding to essential disability services, including residential respite and therapy services, ensuring that disabled people continue to be supported.”
“There is no denying that; however, progress is being made. Investment in national clinical programmes and models of care have led to significant service improvements, including the full implementation of a specialist perinatal mental health network and the ongoing expansion of specialist mental health teams for eating disorders, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, ADHD, in adults and dual diagnosis. In older people's services, older people will be further supported to live at home within their own communities and we will also strengthen the nursing home sector. The work of the independent commission on care for older people is currently under way and the national policy on adult safeguarding for the health and social care sector, a programme for Government commitment, was launched in December.”
“North Kerry CAMHS has introduced new standard operating procedures, care planning policies, file systems and prescribing guidelines. The two Kerry CAMHS teams in place today have a significantly increased multidisciplinary clinical staff complement, higher than any of the other eight CAMHS teams in the region. Over the past three years, an additional €44 million, which is an increase of 32%, has been allocated to support CAMHS to increase core staffing, reduce waiting lists and expand CAMHS hubs to improve crisis cover for services. In budget 2026, funding has been allocated to develop a new CAMHS emergency liaison service, increase out-of-hours on-call, and to establish a new CAMHS eating disorder team and two new CAMHS mental health with intellectual disability teams. Government recognises that recruitment is challenging.”
“Government's main focus has to be on the children, young people and families who have been impacted by this report. A public apology has also been issued by the HSE, including in letters to impacted families. A dedicated helpline and access to the clinical liaison support team remains open to all those affected. HSE South West intends to carry out a clinical review of files of young people who have accessed north Kerry CAMHS over a defined period and details of this further phase will be developed shortly. It is important to note that the issues raised by this report and more broadly by the 2022 Maskey report continue to be the focus of significant reform and service improvements in youth mental health services in this country. Much has changed since 2022.”
“The national patient app has been rolled out. The national shared care record will be developed throughout the year and the electronic health record, recently agreed by Government, will also be progressed. Additional projects that are key to the increased digitalisation of the health service include a national system for electronic prescribing, remote health monitoring and virtual care solutions. In mental health, workforce and infrastructure in community-based services will be further supported. Budget 2026 sees increase in funding for mental health services for the sixth year in a row, bringing the budget to almost €1.6 billion, an increase of 50% since 2020. The findings of the report on the review into child and adolescent and mental health services, CAMHS, in north Kerry are deeply concerning and unacceptable.”
“Capacity in emergency services is continually reviewed. There has been an increase in the number of public-only consultants in emergency medicine and more senior staff are rostered in emergency departments during weekends and public holidays for better decision-making. The workforce will continue to grow through the recruitment of key roles, retention measures and additional college places for key disciplines. Care is being delivered closer to home in 180 primary care centres through 96 community health networks, 27 community specialist teams for older persons, and 26 community specialist teams for chronic diseases, all now operational. There are 23 community intervention teams which are operational, with national coverage secured. A new era of innovation and digital transformation is under way.”
“As for Sláintecare 2025+, our latest Sláintecare strategy published in May of 2025, it aims to forge the way towards accessible, affordable, high-quality healthcare for the people of Ireland when and where they need it. The waiting time action plan 2026 published on 30 January, represents Government’s continued commitment to improving access to hospital care. Since commencement of the multi-annual action plan approach, significant progress has been made in reducing the length of time hospital patients are waiting. The new regional structures within the HSE have been established with the six new health regions and 20 integrated healthcare areas. Health and social care services are planned and delivered around the specific needs of local populations, leading to better co-ordination of care and access to services.”
“I propose to take Questions No. 1 to 18, inclusive, together. The Cabinet committee oversees implementation of the programme for Government commitments in relation to health, receives detailed reports on identified policy areas, and considers health reforms, including Sláintecare, the reform of public health and health system preparedness for future health threats. It also receives reports in relation to programme for Government commitments in the areas of mental health and drugs policy. It is attended by the Minister for Finance, the Minister for Public Expenditure, Infrastructure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation, and the Minister for Health.”
“To be fair, the Minister, Deputy Naughton, who was the Minister of State with responsibility for special education in the previous Government, would be more than willing to meet with the various groups. The Minister of State, Deputy Moynihan, has been travelling the length and breadth of the country meeting with parents, schools and stakeholders in respect of these issues and continues to engage with both the NCSE and the schools. I will raise this issue with the Minister. There has been extensive consultation with the unions in respect of the redeployment scheme. That was brought, more or less, to a conclusion. That should be issued fairly quickly. The workforce planning document is nearing completion. There is the new circular as well, which builds on the 2014 circular and has changes included.”
“I thank the Deputy for raising the issue. Obviously, I cannot deal with every school extension and so on. However, I will raise this with the Minister. There is, again, record funding for school buildings this year, with a particular focus on school extensions for special classes and special education. I will see what we can do in this case.”
“About 94 members of An Garda Síochána are assigned to stations in Longford, which is an increase of 8% since the end of 2016 when there were 87 members. We will focus and I will talk to the Minister and the Commissioner.”
“I thank the Deputy for his commentary. It is a sign of the high esteem in which An Garda Síochána is held in this country that every part of the country is looking for more gardaí but I know it is also to have greater security and safety. The new Commissioner is very clear on the importance of the visibility of An Garda Síochána on our streets. It will get there. The through-put in Templemore is very good, with increased numbers all the time. There is a clear commitment in the programme for Government of up to 5,000 additional gardaí over the lifetime of this Government. A total of 223 trainees entered in November, which was the largest intake since 2014, and it was similar in the last one, so about 617 have come through in 2025 alone. That is manifest in Dublin, Cork, Limerick and Waterford. I take the Deputy's point.”
“Wicklow got about €14.9 million, which is a very substantial amount. In terms of the storm damage, we have told the county councils to continue and work away at fixing those roads. Estimates are coming in from the councils separate from their normal road budget, although there are contingencies built into their normal allocation. Nonetheless we do accept that under Storm Éowyn there were particular impacts, so the Department of Transport is working with county councils, including the Deputy's county council, regarding the estimation of the damage done to the roads as a result of the recent flooding in particular.”
“Deterrence is required here because far too casually, people are using violence to carry out terrible deeds that kill people or create very severe impacts for and inflict very severe damage to people for the rest of their lives. These are life-altering injuries in some cases and it is reprehensible. I will talk to the Minister.”
“I will raise the issue with the Minister for Justice, Home Affairs and Migration, although there are offences and they are well provided for - any assault on any person. It gets a bit complicated if we start categorising. We have specifics for emergency care workers, bus workers and transport generally. The attack in Temple Bar was appalling. The issue is the behaviour of the individuals who do this sort of thing. We have to look at sentencing and we need to be very clear that the criminal justice system is in a position to apprehend those responsible for such violent acts and to put them away for a decent amount of time.”
“I thank the Deputy for producing that Bill. I want to engage with him regarding how I can fast track it. It might matter for the House to be of assistance in that regard. In terms of tougher laws on the generation of images, the Attorney General and the Minister for Justice, Home Affairs and Migration are examining that issue. We do have very strong laws preventing the sharing of intimate images and very strong laws in terms of child abuse online. There is no equivocation there. The generation of an image is a complex matter because an image can be generated online or offline in various contexts - what one might presume would be an intimate imagine. I am not going go into the particular fields where that can happen. It is the sharing of the image that is the crime at the moment but they are examining it.”
“He has a duty to tell the truth about these matters. I am willing to engage. The Attorney General is clear that from the get-go, from the beginning, if you move from residential to commercial activity, that de facto requires planning permission. There are certain rules that if you are at it a long time, you do not. That is the existing planning status. That is nothing new. No one is creating something new. That is the position. You can register and the idea will be-----”
“I welcome the Kinsale Men's Shed. The Men's Sheds are wonderful organisations across the country generally. I also welcome the history of politics group from Wexford. It is a discipline close to my own heart, as both a student and a practitioner. On the short-term lets situation, I have watched the odd Facebook presentation from Deputy Collins. He is having meetings up and down and is enjoying himself to a certain extent. The legislation is not requesting anyone to have planning permission. The Deputy knows this.”
“Workforce planning will be published and a new circular in response to that, which will give the template. No one has ever suggested to me that you have the same number forever in any given school. It depends on the need of the school at a given time in terms of the number of children it has who require supports and care. That has always been the case. The Deputy and everyone in the Opposition seems to be now suggesting there should never be any evolution.”
“I said already during Leaders' Questions there will not be any reductions in special needs assistants in our schools in the school year beginning in September 2026. There will be increases, but there will not be any reductions in our schools. There will be well over 25,000 special needs assistants, which will be an increase of 8,700 since 2020. That is expansion. We will then have the redeployment scheme.”
“Also, probably one of the biggest transformations in the past two decades has been the move to primary care centres, which did take some time in the late 2000s to get going. They had been earmarked in an earlier strategy in 2001 but we have now invested very significantly in those primary care centres. The strategic review will be published, I understand, before this summer. It will outline further the policy framework and the direction of travel in respect of GP care, as regards both recruitment and directly publicly recruited GPs, as well as an expansion of access to GPs.”
“I do not accept the premise of the Deputy's argument insofar as we have been expanding access to GP care year after year over the past number of years, particularly over the past five to six years, and before then, in terms of access for children, access for those on median incomes and so forth. There has been expansion.”
“I know there was an allegation in the Epstein files in respect of a young woman being brought to Ireland but I have no knowledge of that. I have asked the Department of justice if it has any. It does not but the Garda, which is ultimately responsible for the investigation of any allegations, says it will investigate all complaints received and all allegations of serious crime, particularly, of course, sexual offences, child abuse and human trafficking. They are treated with the utmost seriousness. I encourage anyone who has any information and anyone who has been a victim of sexual violence to reach out for help and to engage with An Garda Síochána.”
“I salute the bravery and courage of Lisa Phillips in taking on what was a very corrupt and depraved network, as the Deputy has said. I am not clear on the files the Deputy is talking about. My understanding is that the Government does not hold any files in respect of Epstein, although I stand to be corrected on that, so we need to be more specific in terms-----”
“I accept that the price of rent puts a lot of pressure on people, particularly young people, and that is why we are working very hard to increase supply. There were 36,000 house completions last year. The most effective way to deal with rent prices and moderating them is by means of supply. The Deputy knows that but what is Sinn Féin's response? It is to oppose housing applications and to oppose apartment construction. Its leader has now opposed the most recent development in her constituency, of hundreds of apartments. If you add it all up, she now has a fairly unenviable record-----”
“That is accepted. On the allocation of SNAs more broadly, schools make submissions to the special educational needs organiser, SENO, and determinations are arrived at. These very often depend on the number of children requiring care and support in the school. Decisions are made and, if schools disagree, they can appeal those decisions. That is the structure. We are bringing in a redeployment scheme to give safety in employment to special needs assistants. A lot of progress has been made in this area compared with where we were ten years ago or even five years ago. That redeployment scheme was well negotiated. It will give the security required.”
“For the first time ever, about 90 therapists will be recruited in a comprehensive way for special schools. Additional special education teachers are being appointed. Thousands have been appointed. There has been a dramatic increase in their numbers and in the number of special classes. Thousands of additional classes have been provided over the last number of years. An objective analysis or assessment shows this expansion and this increase in investment. That will continue. Parallel to that, we want to develop supportive services for teachers in mainstream classes, in special classes and in the system more generally. With regard to special classes, the ratio is well established and has been in place since 1998. It is one teacher and two special needs assistants for a class of six children. That is the ratio in the teaching schedule.”
“The Deputy started off by raising the issue of assessments of need. I was making the point that our view is that the therapists should be directed at providing services. That is the change that needs to happen in the system. That is why the Minister has brought forward legislation that is designed to do that and to release the resources to support children with special needs in a more direct fashion. That is the approach we are going to take. On the issue of special needs assistants, well over 25,000 will be allocated for the next school year. That is a significant expansion on the 2025 figure and on where we have been over the last number of years. That is a story of expansion. The school-based therapy service is a further addition to the special schools.”
“-----national strategy and we have had meetings with all of the organisations in respect of that. I have established a disability unit in the Department of an Taoiseach to have that overall picture of all aspects of the life cycle of a child or a person with special needs. It is very challenging, particularly in the health service side of it. That is why in the past number of years we took disability out of the Department of Health and created its own Department with the Department of children to have that overarching perspective on trying to improve-----”
“We do have an overall approach but there have been 8,775 new special needs assistants in the past five years since 2020, 16 new special schools in the past five years and a new therapy-based service in our special schools, and that will expand. Those are not words; they are facts. They are on the ground. That is what is going to happen. We have an overall approach. We have established a Cabinet subcommittee on disability to look at all aspects. Today, the Minister, Deputy Calleary, had sanction to begin a public consultation on the cost of disability. Yesterday, at the disability Cabinet subcommittee, we had a presentation in terms of a new transport support scheme for people with disabilities. We have a disabled person human rights-based-----”
“That is something we will deliver on during the lifetime of this Government. I would have no issue in sitting down with members of the Opposition and working through some of these issues. We need to very careful when we say the role is too narrow. We really need to think that through. We need more special education teachers. There needs to be more modules in training colleges in respect of special needs. There has been progress in that regard. We have a very comprehensive view of what we have to do in terms of expansion but the question is one of increased investment, not decreased investment.”
“We have prioritised special education. Last year, the Minister, Deputy McEntee, and the Minister of State, Deputy Michael Moynihan, did exceptional work in a very short space of time to try to close the gap in terms of the number of children seeking places. All of us on this side of the House meet parents of children with special needs, always. I never stopped meeting parents of children with special needs. I accept they have to fight a very hard battle for services not just in education but more particularly in health. That is why we are bringing therapies into the school system. Ninety will be recruited this year. I made it a red line issue in the most recent election that we would have a school-based therapy service. I believe in a multidisciplinary approach to help children with special needs.”
“-----has increased significantly over the past two to three years and five years. The Deputy should just go through the figures - they are objectively there. They increased dramatically last year and will increase I think by 300 more again this year. I do not know how the Deputy can credibly put that out there that somebody was questioning the very existence of special classes when we are increasing them exponentially. As I said, the census data indicates significant increases in the number of young people and children presenting or identifying as having a disability. I see the same is happening in the United Kingdom. There are pressures there also. We have to deal with that and that is why the percentage of the overall education budget, which is now €13 billion and growing, is very high and rightly so.”
“When the Deputy says "change the approach", the approach has been of expansion. We have gone from 16,000 to 25,000-plus. Is the Deputy saying we should change that approach? I am not clear when she says we should change the approach. The Deputy said special classes were called into question. They were never called into question as a result of the letters that went out last week. We have 3,741 special classes - how in the name of God could they be called into question? Let us be factual about it. The number of special classes-----”
“I am very clear about this and very focused and I have a very clear idea because I have been working on this all my political life, so I know a fair bit about it. What I am simply saying is that we need additional supports, but we need to have multidisciplinary supports, in my view, in our schools, to help children in a more comprehensive and holistic way.”