WHAT’S GOING ON in Leinster House?

Every day the Dáil and Seanad are sitting, TheJournal.ie brings you the most comprehensive guide to what our lawmakers are getting up to in the Houses of the Oireachtas.

So, here is what we can expect to be happening in the Dáil, Seanad and Committee rooms today…

3 things we’ll be keeping an eye on

• Dáil: Public Expenditure – Brendan Howlin takes questions on his public expenditure and reform portfolio at 9.30am.
• Dáil: Leaders’ Questions – It’s Tánaiste Eamon Gilmore’s turn to take questions from the opposition on the big issues of the day.
• Committees: Lyme disease – It causes headaches, fatigue and flu-like symptoms and it can be caused by a tick-bite. TDs and Senators will hear all about Lyme-Borreliosis from various experts in Room 3 at 9.30am.

Everything else that’s happening in the Dáil

• The Child and Family Agency Bill – the legislation that gives affect to the setting up of a new body to handle child welfare matters – continues to be debated at report and final stages from 10.45am.
• After Leaders’ Questions, TDs get down to the Order of Business at 12.21pm or thereabouts.
• Debate on the Child and Family Agency Bill resumes and is due to adjourn at 4.40pm with a final vote.
• At 4.42pm, the Health Insurance Amendment Bill will be debated at second stage and will be adjourned with a vote by 8pm.
• Then there are Topical Issues, the last item on the Dáíl’s agenda before it adjourns for the day.

Everything else that’s happening in the Seanad

• The Seanad isn’t sitting today. Here’s why.

Everything else that’s happening in the Committees

• The Public Accounts Committee meets in Room 1 at 10am to discuss its own business and then the 2012 annual report of the Comptroller and Auditor General on the staff appointments to the National Gallery of Ireland and its budget with the Gallery’s Olive Braiden and Sean Rainbird.
• There is a timely sitting of the Good Friday Agreement Implementation Committee at 11am in Room 4 given the comments of the North’s Attorney General this week as it hears from the Reverends Norman Hamilton and Trevor Gribben from the Presbyterian Church on challenges in urban Belfast and later from the Community Foundation for the North.
• The Agriculture Committee meets in Room 3 at 11am to discuss the closure of livestock exporter TLT International and how to prevent it happening again with representatives from Irish Co-operative Organisation Society (ICOS), the IFA, the Irish Creamery Milk Suppliers Association, and Irish Cattle and Sheep Farmers’ Association.
• The EU Affairs Committee continues to discuss the social dimension of economic and monetary union in Room 3 at 2pm with representatives from ICTU, the Irish National Organisation of the Unemployed, and Dr Séan Healy from Social Justice Ireland
• The Health Committee begins consideration of the bill to alter the criteria for the eligibility for medical cards with the Primary Care Minister Alex White in Room 2 at midday.

Here’s how to watch what’s going on in Leinster House today

• Dáil Éireann
• Seanad Éireann
• Committee Room 1
• Committee Room 2
• Committee Room 3
• Committee Room 4
• To access streams on iOS, click here

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