WHAT ARE OUR politicians doing in the halls of Leinster House?

TheJournal.ie lets you know with our guide to what’s coming up to the Dáil, Seanad and various Oireachtas committees today.

DÁIL

The day kicks off with Leaders’ Questions at 10:30am, while that is followed by a quick discussion on the rest of the day’s agenda in Order of Business just before 11am.

At 11:30am there’ll be 85 minutes of discussion on last week’s European Council summit, which discussed tax evasion and avoidance across the EU and which urged for a new clampdown on “aggressive tax planning” from multinationals.

The rest of the day, minus a few interruptions, will be spent putting the finishing touches to legislation enforcing pay cuts for public workers earning over €65,000. The cuts are part of the ‘Haddington Road’ structures, and will be reversed for workers on between €65k and €100k between 2017 and 2018.

A final vote on that legislation will be held at 10pm – with interruptions in the meantime for the following:

• Lunch for an hour at 1:30pm
• Joan Burton taking Questions to the Minister for Social Protection at 2:30pm
• Discussion on four Topical Issues at 3:45pm, until just after 4:30pm
• 90 minutes of debate on Fianna Fáil’s motion of no confidence in Alan Shatter, upon which a vote will be taken at 9pm

The day’s Dáil business can all be viewed here.

SEANAD

Order of Business – the daily 75-minute discussion on everything – begins the day at 10:30am, before a visit from Margareta Wahlstrom – the UN’s special representative for disaster risk reduction – who will give an address on the challenges in building ‘risk resilience’ in nations at 11:45am.

After lunch members will discuss amendments to new legislation on tobacco marketing at 3pm, while at 4:30pm two hours will be devoted to a motion from Rónán Mullen and Feargal Quinn discussing how Ireland can better support children with special educational needs.

The day’s Seanad business can all be viewed here.

COMMITTEES

After yesterday’s quiet day on the committee front, there are no fewer than six public meetings today: (Watch here.)

• The Transport and Communcations committee is first up, to discuss no fewer than 14 new plans for EU-wide legislation, on matters including trans-European energy distribution, ‘occurrence reporting’ in civil aviation, marine equipment and more. (Watch here.)
• The Education committee gathers at 1pm to hear from Departmental officials and Eagraíocht na Scoileanna Gaeltachta on the impact that changes to the pupil-teacher ratio will have on small schools.
• The Foreign Affairs and Trade committee meets the ‘Value Added in Africa’ and ‘Traidlinks’ groups at 2:30pm to mark Africa Day and discuss how trade and investment can help the continent to flourish.
• At 3:30pm the chairman of the Revenue Commissioners, Josephine Feehily, will be in at the Finance committee to discuss how the property tax collection is going so far. This may offer one of the first indications of how many people signed up before last night’s deadline.
• At 4pm the secretary-general at the Department of Health, Ambrose McLoughlin, will attend the Public Service Oversight and Petitions committee to discuss some outstanding legacy issues from the 2010 report about the right to nursing home care.
• Finally, Leo Varadkar makes it into the Transport committee at 6pm to discuss Ireland’s proposed approval of an EU-Israel aviation agreement to integrate the air markets of the two jurisdictions.

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