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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“Yes. That is a school I helped enormously when it was starting. The only challenge is that it produced an awful lot of high-quality Kerry footballers afterwards who won All-Irelands against us, which was pointed out to me with glee by some of the Deputy's colleagues. I have visited St. Brendan's College. A lot of people raise school issues. We are spending a lot more money on schools. A lot more schools need extensions or full buildings. St. Brendan's College is a fantastic school but it is in an old building. I fully appreciate the needs. I will be engaging with the Minister for education to see what we can do in terms of the school programme because quite a number of Deputies across the board have raised school issues today.”
“Emergency works grant funding should be available for that. I will alert the Minister to it. I think he also mentioned Filemore National School, Aghatubrid National School and Coláiste na Sceilge. What is the problem with Coláiste na Sceilge again?”
“Deputy Cahill raised quite a number of issues, including Presentation Monastery National School. He mentioned a significant number. I think the Deputy said that the first language of 85% of pupils is not English, which is huge. This means there are particular needs. Progress is being made in terms of an examination of DEIS plus. If a school is not even in DEIS, the prospects of being in DEIS plus are more limited. There was an extensive review of DEIS about three years ago. I will talk to the Minister about whether there are specific supports we can give that school, particularly in terms of the language issues, that might help it to deal with what is clearly a different set of challenges being faced. The Deputy also referred to Knocknagoshel, where the roof of the sensory room has collapsed.”
“I thank all the Deputies who spoke in relation to this question. Deputy Connolly raised the issue of affordable housing and the local authority affordable scheme in Galway. I will certainly engage with the county manager and the city manager there on the low progress in respect of the application of that scheme in the Galway context. Certainly, as part of the housing action plan, we want to do more on the affordable housing front as well as the social housing front. There have been certain local variations in terms of the application of the schemes. Some of them have been better than others in terms of scale and the number of schemes completed. I will engage with the county councils, the managers and the Deputy to try to progress it. I will talk to the Minister for housing in respect of the Galway situation too.”
“Likewise, justice has a significant allocation of more than €6 billion, €11.5 million of which is for domestic and gender-based violence initiatives. There are many more allocations, but due to time pressure I will not go into them.”
“On migration, we have published a new International Protection Bill to allow for a firm, fair and effective international protection system that aligns with the European Union's migration and asylum pact. We have established a new United Kingdom-Ireland 2030 programme of strategic co-operation to support and strengthen the interaction between Ireland and the UK. We have doubled the resources available to the shared island fund, with a further €1 billion available out to 2035 to foster reconciliation, mutual respect and growth. On justice, defence and national security, we have established a new ministerial council on national security, which I chair. We have allocated €1.49 billion in defence funding in budget 2026, an increase of 11%.”
“In terms of child poverty and well-being, in the budget we made significant provisions including a €320 million package for children featuring the largest increase ever in the child support payment, increased income thresholds for the working family payment and the extension of fuel allowance to those on the working family payment, €3.2 million of additional funding to expand the national network of family resource centres and an additional €5 million for Equal Start, a 30% increase. There is an additional €16.5 million to implement a new DEIS strategy and the new DEIS plus scheme. There is a 22% increase totalling €7.3 million for youth justice supports. The expansion of the income thresholds for the national childcare scheme will reduce the cost of childcare for lower income families.”
“Funding of €20 million is also being provided for the assessment of need targeted waitlist initiative, delivering approximately 6,000 clinical assessments. We established the new education therapy service and launched a recruitment campaign to put 90 occupational and speech and language therapists into 45 special schools in the 2025-26 school year. We also allocated €3 billion to special education, benefiting approximately 250,000 children in the school system who present with a special educational need.”
“We are also committed to implementing action plans on competitiveness and productivity, insurance reform, market diversification and collective bargaining. In the area of disability, I established the disability unit in the Department of the Taoiseach to bring renewed focus and urgency to disability issues across government. The new national disability strategy was published in the second half of last year. In budget 2026, we approved record investment of €3.8 billion in specialist disability services, an increase of 20%. This funding will support enhanced therapy services and other specialised supports for approximately 45,000 children and the recruitment of additional staff for children’s disability network teams.”
“We reduced the VAT rate for food, catering and hairdressers from 13.5% to 9% with effect from 1 July 2026. We increased the research and development tax credit from 30% to 35% which is having a significant impact in inward investment. We revised capital gains tax, increasing the entrepreneur relief lifetime limit threshold from €1 million to €1.5 million. We increased the national minimum wage by 65 cent per hour, a 4.8% increase that directly benefits over 200,000 workers. We extended the special assignee relief programme, SARP, providing income tax relief for persons assigned to work in Ireland from abroad. We also extended relief on foreign earnings to the end of 2030 and increased the limit on the deduction to €50,000 to assist indigenous exporting companies and their employees overseas.”
“Close to 6,000 single dwellings were completed in 2025, up 12.5% from the previous year. In the area of infrastructure, the Government has provided a total public capital investment of €275.4 billion over the period to 2035 under the new national development plan, NDP. The accelerating infrastructure task force and a new infrastructure division are driving wide-ranging reforms that will remove barriers to the delivery of strategic infrastructure. Government has published Ireland’s sixth nitrates action programme underscoring Ireland’s success in retaining the nitrates derogation. The Government’s pro-enterprise decisions in budget 2026 invest in Ireland’s enterprise base and support job creation, regional development, innovation, tourism and long-term competitiveness.”
“We have agreed regulatory reform, tax reductions and an investment of €275 billion over ten years, the largest infrastructure investment in the history of the State. We are targeting the construction of 300,000 homes including 72,000 social homes and 90,000 affordable housing supports. We have agreed reforms to rent pressure zones, strengthening the rights of tenants and stimulating increased investment and development activity. We have reduced VAT on the sale of completed apartments from 13.5% to 9%. There were 36,284 new dwelling completions in 2025, an increase of 20.4% on 2024 and the highest number of completions since the series began in 2018. The number of apartments completed in 2025 was 12,000, up 38.7% from the previous year. There were 18,308 scheme dwelling completions in 2025, an increase of 13.1% from 2024.”
“I propose to take Questions Nos. 1 to 22, inclusive, together. The programme for Government, Our Shared Future, sets out a series of ambitious commitments across social, economic and environmental policy. The Department of the Taoiseach's Statement of Strategy 2025-2028 puts the implementation of the programme for Government central to the mission of the Department and the Cabinet committee structure plays a central role in overseeing the whole-of-government approach to implementing the programme. Just one year into its five-year life cycle, tangible and substantive progress is being made in implementing commitments across all areas in the programme. For example, housing is a key priority of the Government.”
“Other mechanisms then were deployed in those communities, which did not involve pursuit but traffic calming and other measures that rendered those bikes and so on unusable. That worked over time. There were also a lot of other measures, including community policing and getting that-----”
“-----speedily on vehicles. Very often, some pursuits could result in unintended consequences and some other innocent person being injured or killed because vehicles are out of control, particularly vehicles that are being chased or pursued. There is always a balance here.”
“In my city, I recall when joyriding, as it was termed, was all the rage in the 1980s and different strategies had to be pursued. There was always a challenge with pursuit because it involves pursuing young people driving very-----”
“-----of its contracts. I cannot get involved in every single contract in the country, nor would the Deputy expect me to, but I will talk to the Minister for education, Deputy Naughton, in this regard. If there is contractual non-fulfilment - what the Deputy is saying clearly points in that direction – then the Department should rigorously pursue the company. It should also ensure the basics in the schools are put right pending any engagement with the company, be it legal or whatever, to ensure the contract is fulfilled and that children are protected and looked after in those schools with the provision of basic infrastructure, facilities and so forth.”
“The Deputy always has an attitude of trying to put a sting and have a go at people all the time. The more important point is that the Labour Court recommended a final extension in June and we extended it to December. Like others, I met people, survivors and those with long Covid. This does not mean supports end. Rather, staff who remain unfit to return to work will move into the public service sick leave scheme, ensuring continuity of care and financial protection. That scheme provides for payment of 92 calendar days on full pay in a rolling one-year period, followed by 91 calendar days on half pay subject to an overall maximum of 183 calendar days of paid sick leave on a rolling four-year period.”
“I will alert the Minister, Deputy O'Callaghan, to this issue because it is a specific one in terms of the approved housing bodies, Sophia Housing and the Department. It is frustrating when a site has been identified and there is the prospect of getting it off. There is a need for a refuge centre in Laois, and I acknowledge that. I will talk to the Minister. Perhaps I will ask him to contact the Deputy.”
“These school have not been removed from a priority list. Indeed, the Deputy's colleagues, Deputies John McGuinness and Peter 'Chap' Cleere, have raised these two schools with me. I will engage with the Minister. We are expending more money than ever on school buildings and we want to continue to prioritise school buildings. I fully understand the pressure that both these schools are under and the need for additional accommodation at these particular schools. I will continue to work on their behalf to get them over the line.”
“The Deputy makes a good point. There has been a lot of different strategies used to get horses off roads. There is an animal welfare issue very much involved here, in addition to the danger and health and safety issues for children, young people and humans more generally. There are laws governing this but they require review and a stronger approach.”
“I have not had any specific contact although I am aware of the comments by Mr. Larry Fink that Dublin could be one of a number of potential locations for Davos, or an alternative to Davos. I notice some of the officials connected to the event were less strong about it. Be that as it may, this year is a huge event for the country with the European Presidency. The European Political Community of leaders will be meeting towards the end of the year. We will have a significant series of large meetings with Heads of State, Prime Ministers and so on. We will keep an eye on that and engage to see if an event pertaining to the World Economic Forum could be held in Ireland.”
“I was responsible for establishing the pre-ambulance emergency council, which ushered in the new era of professional first responders that transformed the whole ambulance situation. There is a broader issue with how ambulances are deployed. The council and the national authorities responsible have a clear view as to what is the best and optimal deployment. Not everybody in this House agrees with that. We need to try to work through how it works with the ambulance authorities and the HSE and ongoing development in respect of it.”
“It will be banned in public parks, on public lands and on public roads. Coillte has a responsibility to ensure its trails, walkways and so on are not used by illegal scramblers using scrambler bikes. There will have to be a zero-tolerance approach to the use of scramblers where the public are engaged. They should be used in proper sporting facilities where they were originally meant to be used. Where I was reared we had a scrambler track nearby in Vernonmount. We never had any problems with them being used on our roads or around our neighbourhood. It was always understood that they were there for a sporting purpose. I accept that has changed and the world has changed. Appalling behaviour is evident on our roads and in public parks. We have to make sure that all public authorities and the gardaí make sure it does not happen.”
“I also spoke to the officials in that Department and with the Minister of State, Deputy Canney, about the need. They are doing an assessment with the local authorities now.”
“I met with the Deputy, the local authorities and the tidy towns group in Aughrim. I pay tribute to them and the local authority for the exceptional response. It again underlined the importance of community-based facilities and community centres. These are two communities under enormous pressure from weather events. In this case it was not a particular river breaking its bank, rather it was all of the water coming off the mountains and hills taking roads with it. It caused danger and huge trauma and distress to a number of households and the village. I saw it first hand and spoke to the engineers about the need for funding for roads in the Aughrim. I spoke to the Minister, Deputy O'Brien, about it yesterday and alerted him to the fact.”
“The Minister for Health is seized of the situation across the country, including Mayo. We have allocated significant additional resources to the Health Service Executive this year, compared with last year. Population is growing and there are lots of pressures on acute hospitals. I will talk to the Minister in the first instance with respect to the issues the Deputy has raised. Obviously, during the Christmas and flu period certain electives were postponed. We know that. That is normal. It happens when there is a particularly bad flu season as there was in November, December and January. The Minister is working with the hospital's management and clinicians to make sure we continue to reform as we allocate additional spending.”
“I will talk to the Minister for education with respect to the college the Deputy has raised. There is a broader issue. We have dramatically increased spending for second level and primary schools in terms of investment. The national development plan represents a further expansion and increase in projects. We will continue to keep all of this under review and do everything we can to progress as many schools as possible that need extensions or completely new builds in some cases.”
“It is a significant change and there are other elements of that legislation also that represent significant change from the status quo . At least that should be acknowledged. There are constitutional constraints.”
“It is unfair of the Deputy to use the language that she has used in identifying the Government's response. The Minister, Jim O'Callaghan, has seized on this issue and the legislation is anything but the status quo . The Minister is going as far as he possibly can within constitutional limits. A complete ban or a blanket ban on the disclosure of counselling records is simply unconstitutional. That is the very strong advice from the Attorney General, and indeed other legal advice has confirmed that. The Minister is going as far as he possibly can. From now on, if counselling records are sought by the defence, a judge will scrutinise the material and make an impartial and objective decision on whether disclosure is necessary in the interest of justice.”
“I thank the Deputy for raising this issue. It is a very important one. I also wish to convey my condolences to the family of Martin and Sharon and those the Deputy has met . We have to prioritise victims and survivors of criminal violence and we are doing that. Deputy Bacik is a person with a significant legal background. Perhaps she and the Minister, Deputy O'Callaghan, could engage on the substance of her party's legislation. I will talk to the Minister in the context of her raising this and perhaps he can engage with her on it.”
“In my touring around the country on Monday, travelling to various spots, it was interesting that the Aughrim event was different from the Enniscorthy one. Each had their different local manifestations. It is important, yes, that we get better at bringing the national frameworks closer to the local manifestations of the various weather events.”
“I appreciate Deputy McDonald raising this issue. I was surprised that nobody raised it on Leaders' Questions given the urgency of it and the importance of it. Fifty-six schemes have been completed and a further 100 schemes are at different stages of development. I am blaming nobody and have not blamed anybody other than the fact that we are experiencing severe weather events more frequently. Weather is changing and patterns are changing, resulting in very high and elevated levels of water across the land. Climate change, in my view, is responsible for the rapidly changing weather patterns we are experiencing. Every event we evaluate, as we did after Storm Éowyn. A very significant action took place after Storm Éowyn, but that was a different kind of storm.”
“I say that with a sense of humour. It is the first time, I think, that I have ever witnessed "Happy birthday" being sung in Dáil Éireann, so you have broken new ground. It appears you were a soccer referee. You would have made a great Ceann Comhairle in another life, clearly. Thank you for everything, and also to Lorraine, Michelle, Jennifer, Karl and the family. Enjoy your retirement. It is well earned and well deserved.”
“Ar dtús báire, gabhaim buíochas le Mick O’Brien as an méid oibre atá déanta aige ar son Thithe an Oireachtais i rith na mblianta. Gan amhras, is duine den scoth é agus tá muid go léir fíorbhuíoch de. I want to congratulate you on everything you have achieved, particularly your work on the historical restoration. You have been a phenomenal officeholder here, in many ways reflecting the outstanding tradition of the usher community, which has made life so meaningful, hospitable and welcoming for all who are elected to Leinster House. I speak as a Taoiseach who you have not seen off.”
“Research is the future in terms of our capacity to export to the US and our capacity to attract foreign direct investment into the country.”
“I will alert IDA Ireland to Deputy's comments on Laois. I know Deputy Fleming also has an interest there, as do other Deputies. Deputy Stanley has his hand up as well. I hope he keeps his hand up in respect of the economic relationship between the US and Ireland. Notwithstanding everything that has happened, there have been significant investments even since all of the turbulence. I will not name all of the companies but the bottom line is that Dublin, Cork, Galway, Clare, Kilkenny, Monaghan and Meath, just to mention a number of counties, all benefited in 2024 from investments from US companies. The research and development tax credit of an additional 5% has had a significant impact in terms of investment in research and development in existing multinational companies in Ireland and, of course, in our indigenous companies.”
“Dáil Éireann needs to acknowledge that while also dealing with other issues. It cannot just be dismissed and put to one side. As Taoiseach, I have an obligation to protect livelihoods, workers and farmers in this country. A lot of food produced in Ireland is exported to the US. The Deputy is correct; tariffs did create uncertainty. The European Union managed to negotiate a landing zone that Ireland, Europe and the world can live with in respect of the trading relationship, particularly in the areas of pharmaceuticals, which is a hugely significant area, medtech, technology and financial services. The engagement is also in terms of the geopolitical turbulence that is going on at the moment. We have articulated our position on the Middle East and our position on Ukraine, for example, which is particularly important.”
“US companies spent over €40 billion on goods and services, payroll and capital expenditure in Ireland in 2023. That figure was identified by AmCham, the American Chamber of Commerce Ireland. On the other side, more than 200,000 people are directly employed by 780-odd Irish companies across all 50 states in America. Irish companies are global companies. Our food companies are global companies. They have long gone past this small market. They manufacture, produce and procure food to sell all over the world. We are the fifth largest source of foreign direct investment into the United States, with investment by Irish companies valued at about $390 billion. That is a very significant economic relationship that puts bread on the tables of Irish workers the length and breadth of the country.”
“I thank Deputy Aird for raising this important issue and the critical economic relationship between Ireland and the United States. Not too many Deputies in the House seem to want to mention that. "Economic relationships" seems to be a dirty word. It is enormous. The European Union-US economic relationship is the biggest in the world. It cannot be dismissed. The implications of any implosion of US-European relations would be very significant for our economy, for Europe's economy and for America's economy. The Deputy is correct; bar Germany, Ireland probably has the strongest economic relationship with the US. That is quite an extraordinary statistic. US companies directly employ about 210,000 people in Ireland and indirectly support about 167,000 jobs. Those are the figures as of last March, which come from the IDA's US investment brief.”
“In most of the training colleges now, it is all about that, with multidisciplinary teams working together and every person on that team being an important cog in the wheel to make sure the surgery or treatment of a condition goes properly. Open disclosure is the key to that. Non-disclosure agreements have no part in that.”
“Historically, it is fair to say the cultural norm in medicine was not to disclose openly. Over time, that has changed, to be honest to all involved, but we still have a distance to go. We learn through error and medicine is not failure-proof, although the more you create a systemic approach to medicine, the less error you have. The cult of the miracle worker or of the brilliant person was always a challenge and a cultural challenge within health. It is a system-wide approach that reduces adverse incidents, bad practice and poor practice. We must have a systemic approach and the culture has to be all about that.”
“The implementation of the Clarke report into the tragic death of Aoife Johnston at University Hospital Limerick also brought forward a number of significant improvements, supporting the implementation of key initiatives, such as the framework for safe nurse staffing and skill mix, the emergency medicine early warning system, updated sepsis guidelines and a new national quality improvement framework for emergency department triage and local escalation plans.”
“We have seen good examples recently from the chief executive officer, Bernard Gloster, who in a number of cases has changed the culture, it would appear to me, come forward, identified clear faults, and apologised himself publicly on behalf of the HSE in respect of significant wrongdoing and errors that have been made. The HSE has updated its national open disclosure policy. The Department and the HSE, in consultation with stakeholders, are currently finalising a revised HSE incident management framework that sets out how serious incidents are reviewed and learned from. I am told that the Act was commenced, other than section 68. I do not have the specifics around that section with me, but that is what I have been told and the information I have here.”
“It was passed by both Houses and signed by the President in May 2023. It is to ensure that families and patients have access to comprehensive and timely information. It is achieved by an open disclosure mechanism in the Act. It contributes to embedding a culture whereby clinicians in the health service as a whole engage openly, transparently and compassionately with patients and their families. The requirements apply to all healthcare bodies, including the HSE, all section 38 and section 39 organisations, private hospitals and private health and social care providers, such as GPs, dentists and pharmacists. The Act contains a provision by which the Minister can add to this list via regulation. Patients and their families must have access, as I have said, to comprehensive and timely information, including an apology where appropriate.”
“I thank the Deputy for raising the issue. Without question, there should be no cover-up in respect of any medical misadventure, any error or any wrongdoing. Hospitals and the medical community should own up immediately. That is good practice. It is unacceptable that for decades many families have had to go long periods endeavouring to find out the full truth in respect of what happened to their loved ones. The Patient Safety (Notifiable Incidents and Open Disclosure) Act 2023, landmark patient safety legislation, was commenced in September 2024. It provides a legislative framework for a number of important patient safety issues, including the mandatory open disclosure of a list of specified serious patient safety incidents that must be disclosed to the patient and to their family.”
“Who the hell do you think you are? Do you have some moral superiority over everybody else? You do not have moral superiority over anybody else in this House. Everybody in this House is at one in terms of going after anybody who would generate and disseminate child abuse material, and the legislation is there to do that. The State does not get involved in a Garda investigation. Politicians do not bring in the Garda and ask, "What are you doing in that investigation?" The Garda, under the law, is pursuing all aspects of the 1998 legislation where it is breached and the 2020 legislation, but particularly the 1998 legislation, to make sure there is absolutely full accountability before the law and before our courts in respect of this issue. I am thinking both domestically, in terms of our national laws, and-----”
“The Deputy just made a reprehensible assertion at the commencement of his last comment. The idea that we would give priority to not standing up to big tech over the generation and sharing of child abuse material is an absolutely shocking and reprehensible assertion. How dare you?”
“The Minister for Culture, Communications and Sport is meeting his French counterparts today in respect of this issue and will also introduce an age verification tool. Significant work is being done on that, initially on a pilot basis, to inform how we would do that on a nationwide basis. All potential measures are under review in terms of how we deal with social media-----”
“We all have an obligation in here to lay out for the public the legal frameworks by which we can go after large platforms. There is no toleration of child abuse materials on any platform. There is no attempt by any Government to protect such proliferation of abuse material. After all, it was this House and the then Government in 1998 that brought in very far-seeing legislation in respect of the issue of the generation and dissemination of child abuse material. The 2020 Act is also very comprehensive in its coverage. The Attorney General is quite positive in terms of the depth and breadth of the 2020 Act regarding what it can deal with and what the prosecuting authorities can pursue in respect of that Act pursuant to the sharing of adult material generated on any platform, particularly and specifically the X platform here.”