Among the north west’s Dail deputies, one Donegal TD has the distinction of speaking the most during the past year while another Donegal TD spoke the least.
An analysis by The Irish Times of all Dail speeches made this year shows Sinn Fein’s Pearse Doherty was on his feet the most, speaking 154 times.
In comparison, Fine Gael’s Joe McHugh spoke just 17 times.
The analysis was taken from KildareStreet.com, a searchable database of everything said in the Oireachtas.
The average number of contributions for a TD in the past year is 85.
But some spoke over 200 times.
Independent Donegal Deputy Thomas Pringle spoke 133 times.
Fianna Fail’s Charlie McConalogue spoke 65 times.
Turning to Sligo/Leitrim, Sinn Fein’s Martin Kenny spoke 116 times, Fine Gael’s Tony McLoughlin 71 times, Fianna Fail’s Marc MacSharry 52 times and Eamon Scanlon, 48.
Solidarity and People Before Profit TDs make up just 4% of the seats in the Dail but made 7.5% of the spoken contibutions.
Fianna Fail has 25% of seats but make up 28% of speeches.
Heckling or shouting in most cases was not recorded in the count but if a TD interrupts to make a point, that is counted.
Currently, Fianna Fail is trying to change the speaking rules to give larger parties more speaking time.
But People Before Profit say it shows they are an irritant to Fianna Fail who is worried about the effect of the Left.
