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DEBATES

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DÁIL ÉIREANN

Official Report latest update:

Thu, 11 Jul 2024: 48 topics were published, which include 116 speakers and 0
divisions of the House.

 * Read this debate
 * Watch Dáil debates
 * Browse Dáil debates


SEANAD ÉIREANN

Official Report latest update:

Wed, 17 Jul 2024: 5 topics were published, which include 45 speakers and 0
divisions of the House.

 * Read this debate
 * Watch Seanad debates
 * Browse Seanad debates


COMMITTEES

Official Report latest update:

Meeting of the Seanad Select Committee On Scrutiny Of Draft Eu-Related Statutory
Instruments on Wed, 17 Jul 2024.

 * Read this debate
 * Watch committee debates
 * Browse Committee debates


PQS (QUESTIONS)

Official Report latest update:

Mon, 9 Sep 2024: 306 Parliamentary Questions answered.

 * Read parliamentary questions


DEBATES SEARCH

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In: all debates Dáil Éireann debates Seanad Éireann debates Committee debates
Parliamentary Questions
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So far in 2024, the Debates Office has reported 13,943,081 words across 41
forums.

Total word count for Joint Committee on Assisted Dying in 2024 is 68,715 words
over 4 meetings.Joint Committee on Assisted Dying68,715Total word count for Dáil
Éireann in 2024 is 4,902,708 words over 63 meetings.Dáil Éireann4,902,708Total
word count for Joint Committee on Tourism, Culture, Arts, Sport and Media in
2024 is 261,121 words over 12 meetings.Joint Committee on Tourism, Culture,
Arts, Sport and Media261,121Total word count for Joint Committee on Social
Protection, Community and Rural Development and the Islands in 2024 is 254,406
words over 14 meetings.Joint Committee on Social Protection, Community and Rural
Development and the Islands254,406Total word count for Joint Committee on
Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach in 2024 is 204,784 words
over 11 meetings.Joint Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and
Taoiseach204,784Total word count for Joint Committee on European Union Affairs
in 2024 is 136,649 words over 12 meetings.Joint Committee on European Union
Affairs136,649Total word count for Committee on Budgetary Oversight in 2024 is
128,348 words over 13 meetings.Committee on Budgetary Oversight128,348Total word
count for Joint Committee on Disability Matters in 2024 is 282,386 words over 17
meetings.Joint Committee on Disability Matters282,386Total word count for Joint
Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine in 2024 is 449,660 words over 23
meetings.Joint Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine449,660Total word
count for Select Committee on Enterprise, Trade and Employment in 2024 is 43,743
words over 4 meetings.Select Committee on Enterprise, Trade and
Employment43,743Total word count for Joint Committee on Health in 2024 is
370,196 words over 17 meetings.Joint Committee on Health370,196Total word count
for Joint Committee on the Implementation of the Good Friday Agreement in 2024
is 158,859 words over 12 meetings.Joint Committee on the Implementation of the
Good Friday Agreement158,859Total word count for Committee of Public Accounts in
2024 is 610,141 words over 22 meetings.Committee of Public Accounts610,141Total
word count for Seanad Éireann in 2024 is 2,237,904 words over 58 meetings.Seanad
Éireann2,237,904Total word count for Joint Committee on Foreign Affairs and
Defence in 2024 is 126,095 words over 10 meetings.Joint Committee on Foreign
Affairs and Defence126,095Total word count for Joint Committee on Housing, Local
Government and Heritage in 2024 is 280,466 words over 13 meetings.Joint
Committee on Housing, Local Government and Heritage280,466Total word count for
Joint Committee on Environment and Climate Action in 2024 is 273,106 words over
18 meetings.Joint Committee on Environment and Climate Action273,106Total word
count for Joint Committee on Education, Further and Higher Education, Research,
Innovation and Science in 2024 is 193,083 words over 13 meetings.Joint Committee
on Education, Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and
Science193,083Total word count for Joint Committee on Transport and
Communications in 2024 is 281,601 words over 13 meetings.Joint Committee on
Transport and Communications281,601Total word count for Joint Committee on
Enterprise, Trade and Employment in 2024 is 236,174 words over 16 meetings.Joint
Committee on Enterprise, Trade and Employment236,174Total word count for Select
Committee on Social Protection, Community and Rural Development and the Islands
in 2024 is 54,849 words over 5 meetings.Select Committee on Social Protection,
Community and Rural Development and the Islands54,849Total word count for
Comhchoiste na Gaeilge, na Gaeltachta agus Phobal Labhartha na Gaeilge in 2024
is 311,745 words over 16 meetings.Comhchoiste na Gaeilge, na Gaeltachta agus
Phobal Labhartha na Gaeilge311,745Total word count for Select Committee on
Health in 2024 is 128,910 words over 6 meetings.Select Committee on
Health128,910Total word count for Select Committee on Finance, Public
Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach in 2024 is 114,273 words over 7
meetings.Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and
Taoiseach114,273Total word count for Joint Committee on Public Petitions and the
Ombudsmen in 2024 is 189,965 words over 15 meetings.Joint Committee on Public
Petitions and the Ombudsmen189,965Total word count for Select Committee on
Justice in 2024 is 11,248 words over 1 meetings.Select Committee on
Justice11,248Total word count for Select Committee on Children, Equality,
Disability, Integration and Youth in 2024 is 7,033 words over 1 meetings.Select
Committee on Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth7,033Total
word count for Select Committee on Education, Further and Higher Education,
Research, Innovation and Science in 2024 is 35,439 words over 3 meetings.Select
Committee on Education, Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and
Science35,439Total word count for Select Committee on Agriculture, Food and the
Marine in 2024 is 13,390 words over 1 meetings.Select Committee on Agriculture,
Food and the Marine13,390Total word count for Select Committee on Foreign
Affairs and Defence in 2024 is 64,451 words over 3 meetings.Select Committee on
Foreign Affairs and Defence64,451Total word count for Joint Committee on Key
Issues affecting the Traveller Community (2023) in 2024 is 122,315 words over 7
meetings.Joint Committee on Key Issues affecting the Traveller Community
(2023)122,315Total word count for Select Committee on Transport and
Communications in 2024 is 30,179 words over 3 meetings.Select Committee on
Transport and Communications30,179Total word count for Roghchoiste na Gaeilge,
na Gaeltachta agus Phobal Labhartha na Gaeilge in 2024 is 3,501 words over 1
meetings.Roghchoiste na Gaeilge, na Gaeltachta agus Phobal Labhartha na
Gaeilge3,501Total word count for Select Committee on Tourism, Culture, Arts,
Sport and Media in 2024 is 15,971 words over 1 meetings.Select Committee on
Tourism, Culture, Arts, Sport and Media15,971Total word count for Joint
Committee on Justice in 2024 is 162,930 words over 9 meetings.Joint Committee on
Justice162,930Total word count for Joint Committee on Children, Equality,
Disability, Integration and Youth in 2024 is 140,116 words over 9 meetings.Joint
Committee on Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth140,116Total
word count for Select Committee on Housing, Local Government and Heritage in
2024 is 739,208 words over 23 meetings.Select Committee on Housing, Local
Government and Heritage739,208Total word count for Seanad Public Consultation
Committee in 2024 is 132,538 words over 4 meetings.Seanad Public Consultation
Committee132,538Total word count for Seanad Select Committee on Scrutiny of
Draft EU related Statutory Instruments in 2024 is 24,571 words over 3
meetings.Seanad Select Committee on Scrutiny of Draft EU related Statutory
Instruments24,571Total word count for Joint Committee on Drugs Use in 2024 is
131,523 words over 6 meetings.Joint Committee on Drugs Use131,523Total word
count for Select Committee on Environment and Climate Action in 2024 is 8,781
words over 1 meetings.Select Committee on Environment and Climate Action8,781

Word count data refreshed on 23. Juli.


MOST RECENT VOTE

Planning and Development Bill 2023: Committee Stage (Resumed)

Amendment put:

[17 July 2024]

 * Tá (7 votes cast)
 * Níl (20 votes cast)


DECLARED

Lost

View vote details

 * See all votes


ABOUT THE OFFICIAL REPORT

When are debates published?

Dáil debates are published incrementally throughout a sitting day. All
proceedings before 7 p.m. are published before midnight and the remainder are
published the following day.

Seanad debates are published incrementally throughout a sitting day, with any
remaining proceedings published the following day.

The Official Report of each committee meeting is generally published within two
or three working days of a sitting but this can depend on the number and length
of committee meetings in any given week.

Replies to questions tabled by Members on a particular day for written response
by Ministers are generally published within two working days.

What are parliamentary debates?

The "Official Report" of parliamentary debates is the report of Dáil, Seanad and
committees proceedings.

It is a principle of parliamentary democracy that proceedings should be held in
public and that a record should be published.

The Official Report is the authoritative record of public proceedings of the
Houses of the Oireachtas and parliamentary committees. It includes oral and
written parliamentary questions. Standing Orders of the Houses of the Oireachtas
state that a debate for each sitting should be published.

On occasion, special editions of the Official Report are published to mark an
event or occasion, such as the centenary in 2019 of the first sitting of Dáil
Éireann on 21 January 1919 or the address by President John F. Kennedy on 28
June 1963. 

Where can I find the Official Report?

The Official Report from 1919 to the present day can be found in our repository
of parliamentary debates. Debate searches may also be refined by House, such as
Dáil and Seanad, and by committee.

There is also a searchable record of divisions, or votes, taken in the Houses or
committees. Parliamentary questions may also be searched or explored visually. 

Printed bound volumes of Dáil and Seanad debates are also produced and may be
found in copyright libraries.

Is the Official Report a verbatim account?

The Official Report is a complete and impartial report of the contributions of
all speakers; it is substantially but not strictly verbatim because it is
accepted that the spoken word must be lightly edited for a readership rather
than a listenership.

Parliamentary reporting often follows the guideline from Erskine May, which
defines what the debates of parliament are and are not:

The Official Report is a full report in the first person, of all speakers alike,
a full report being defined as one which, though not strictly verbatim, is
substantially a verbatim report, with repetitions and redundancies omitted and
with obvious mistakes corrected, but which on the other hand leaves out nothing
that adds to the meaning of the speech or illustrates the argument.

What is the role of the Debates Office?

The Debates Office has responsibility for producing the Official Report.

The Debates Office is led by the Chief Reporter and Editor of Debates and a team
of deputy editors, assistant editors, parliamentary reporters and administrative
staff. Parliamentary reporters are recruited by the Public Appointments Service
in open competitions. Many of our staff hold postgraduate qualifications,
including to PhD level.

The office recruits two panels, one of which is English only and one of which is
bilingual – Gaeilge and English – to ensure expertise in Irish and English.

HOW IS THE OFFICIAL REPORT PRODUCED?

From the founding of the State, reporters used shorthand and dictated the report
to a team of typists, after which the report was sent to external printers for
publication. This process of reporting changed in 1993 and proceedings are now
recorded digitally and produced and published by Debates Office staff on the
Oireachtas website.

On a typical day, one team of reporters is assigned to the Dáil and another to
the Seanad and committees. Members of each team will take turns to spend ten
minutes in the Chamber and keep a log of speakers and business transacted. They
will then return to their workstations and, using the digital sound file,
produce the report of those ten minutes. The work is then edited, collated and
published by the editorial team.

Take a deeper dive by looking at a day in the life of the Debates Office.

Citing the Official Report

HISTORICAL CITATION

Historical debates were originally published in physical daily books of debate
and bound volumes, which had column numbers used for citation purposes. Using
the Harvard style of referencing, for example, the Official Report may be cited
as follows for a debate from 2005:

McGrath, Paul, Dáil Debates, Vol. 600, No. 5, cols. 1602-1604, 20 April 2005

(Speaker, Debate volume and book No., Column Nos., Date of speech)

COLUMN REFERENCES

Column references in digitised and online versions of the Official Report were
retained until 2012, when the practice of including column references online
ceased. Column or page numbers are still available for citation purposes in
bound volumes on publication or in the electronic PDF version of daily debates
published online, which are usually available on the table of contents page of
each daily debate. If the PDF is unavailable for historical debates, it may be
possible to retrieve column reference data on our archived site of Oireachtas
debates.

CITATION OF THE ONLINE OFFICIAL REPORT

The Official Report is published online in the first instance, usually on the
same sitting day or soon afterwards. If no column or page reference is
available, the debate may be referenced in line with style for an online
resource. Using the Harvard style of referencing, for example, the Official
Report may be cited as follows for a debate from 2024:


McDonald, M.L., (2024), Dáil Debates (Unrevised), [online], 21 February 2024,
Available
at: https://www.oireachtas.ie/en/debates/debate/dail/2024-02-21/speech/65/
(accessed 22 February 2024)

(Surname(s), Initial(s). (Year of publication), [House or Committee type]
Debates (Unrevised), [online], date. Available at: website address (accessed
date)

OPEN DATA

The redevelopment of the Oireachtas website involved a thorough review of the
data formats being published on our website with a view to aligning to
international standards. All debates data have been aligned to the Akoma Ntoso
international XML standard for parliamentary data, ensuring users of our open
data APIs can work with valid, structured data.

Every debate is published in an XML format, such as this example, with a uniform
taxonomy, as the basis for publication to the web and in hard copy. With our
open data APIs, users can access datasets relating to debates, divisions (votes)
and parliamentary questions, among other resources, in a machine-readable
format.


A DAY IN THE LIFE | DEBATES

In producing the Official Report they work with many other sections in
the Service, taking in committees, parliamentary questions and political staff.

Parliamentary reporter Cian Fitzsimons describes a typical day for him in
Leinster House reporting the debate in Dáil Éireann.

 * Take a look at a day in the life of the Debates Office


OFFICIAL REPORT | VOL.1000

Since 1922, the Debates Office has been tasked with producing and publishing the
Official Report of Oireachtas proceedings, including the physical bound volumes
of debate.

Take a closer look at the Official Report as the office reaches a milestone in
the production of its bound volumes.

 * Check out the journey to Vol. 1000


UTTERANCES HAVING AN ADVERSE EFFECT

If you consider that you have been adversely affected by an utterance in the
Dáil, Seanad or an Oireachtas Committee, there is a process you can follow to
address this.

 * Find out more


DÁIL AND SEANAD TERMS

The 33nd Dáil first met on 20 February 2020. The 26th Seanad met for the first
time on 29 June 2020.

Get the start and end dates of all the Dáil and Seanad terms since the
foundation of the State.

 * Find out more

Notable Debates


ASSASSINATION OF THE VICE PRESIDENT, 12 JULY 1927

“It has been the fate of this country, perhaps more than others, to see torn
from her ruthlessly devoted sons of great achievement and greater promise while
the flowers of their service were yet hardly unfolded.”

—William T.Cosgrave

 * Read the debate
 * See more notable debates

Seanad debates through the decades


FAMILY PLANNING BILL 1973

“I make this final appeal: let us as Senators confer on ourselves the
jurisdiction to debate what every other forum in the country has debated. Let us
not shirk the issue.”

— Mary Robinson

 * Read the debate
 * See more Seanad debates through the decades

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