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

Wednesday begins, as Wednesdays do, with Enda Kenny taking 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.

There will follow a brief session with statements on the death of PJ Morley, a former Fianna Fáil TD for Mayo East from 1977 to 1997, whose death occurred last September.

There are three pieces of legislation on the agenda for the day – the Housing (Amendment) Bill, easing the transition from one model of charging rent to another; the HSE Governance Bill, which abolishes the board of the HSE and replaces it with a directorate;  and the Further Education and Training Bill, which abolishes FÁS and replaces it with a new SOLAS.

Each of those pieces of legislation should be totally wrapped up by the end of the day – with the HSE Governance Bill then sent off to the Áras, while the other two are dispatched to the Seanad.

The Dáil will sit until 10pm to get all of them wrapped up, with interruptions for the following:

• Lunch for an hour at 1:30pm
• Phil Hogan taking Questions to the Minister for the Environment at 2:30pm
• Discussion on four Topical Issues at 3:45pm, until just after 4:30pm
• 90 minutes of debate on Sinn Féin’s Bill to repeal the property tax, which begin at 7:30pm and end with a vote at 9pm

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

SEANAD

The daily discussion on the Order of Business takes up the first 75 minutes of the day; before some housekeeping legislation allowing full access to the Irish Labour market for Croatian immigrants once the country joins the European Union on July 1.

At 2:30pm Sinn Féin’s three senators table a motion on youth unemployment and the Youth Guarantee Scheme – in short, calling for more resources to be devoted to finding jobs for young people – with a vote taken at 4:30pm.

After that, it’s the first outing for a new Bill from Brendan Howlin – the Public Service Management (Recruitment and Appointments) (Amendment) Bill 2013, which lowers the legal burdens for moving employees between different arms of the public service.

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

COMMITTEES

It’s a rammed day, with no fewer than seven committees holding public meetings today:

• The Transport and Communications Committee meets at 9:30am – with its chairman Tom Hayes still in situ, despite his appointment as a junior minister – to discuss the maintenance of regional and local roads with the County and City Managers’ Association. (Watch here.)
• There are two meetings of the Justice committee today: the first is at 9:30am to discuss the development of a new prison for Cork City, and the second at 2pm when Dr Robbie McVeigh and Dr Jim MacLoughlin attend to discuss the latest in the efforts to give legal recognition of Traveller ethnicity. (Watch here.)
• At 2pm today, Ireland’s Junior Cert students sit their History paper. At 1pm, however, the History Teachers Association of Ireland and departmental officials will meet the Education committee to discuss proposed changes to the Junior Cert History curriculum. (Watch here.)
• Brian Hayes wanders into the sub-committee on Public Expenditure and Reform at 2pm to guide members through proposed amendments to the longstanding legislation from Senator Feargal Quinn, the Construction Contracts Bill 2010, which would require people in the construction industry to give advance notice if they may be unable or unwilling to withhold sums from payments. (Watch here.)
• At 2:30pm, the chief civil servant from the Department of Foreign Affairs visits the committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade to discuss the Department’s EU scrutiny reports for 2012, before Hans Zomer of foreign aid charity Dóchas asks to discuss Ireland’s foreign aid priorities after 2015. (Watch here.)
• The Public Service Oversight and Petitions committee meets Kathleen Lynch at 4pm when the junior minister will outline a national strategy on suicide awareness. (Watch here.)
• Finally, the Environment committee meets at 4pm to hear from the chairman-designate of the Housing and Sustainable Communities Agency, Conor Skehan, before Jan O’Sullivan briefs members on new planning and development regulations. (Watch here.)

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