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 and various Oireachtas committees today.

DÁIL

It’s actually pretty unusual for the Oireachtas to sit on the Tuesday after a bank holiday weekend – but today our TDs and Senators are sharing our pain, albeit by only getting back to work after lunch.

The Dáil’s day begins with Alan Shatter taking questions as Minister for Defence at 2pm, before Enda Kenny takes Leaders’ Questions at 3:15pm and Questions to the Taoiseach for an hour at 3:36pm. TDs debate the rest of the day’s agenda then, before four topical issues are discussed at 5:06pm.

There’s two main items on the agenda for the evening: one is the final discussion on the amnesty for World War II deserters who left the Irish army to fight with the Allies, which should be wrapped up by about 6:30pm, and the Housing (Amendment) Bill to ease the transition between two methods of charging rent to council tenants.

The last item of the day is 90 minutes of debate on a Fianna Fáil motion about the fodder crisis, which criticises the “complete and utter failure of the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine to address the growing crisis in its early stages in 2012″ and calls for a special inter-departmental unit to supply feed. Debate is adjourned at 9pm.

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

SEANAD

The Seanad’s customary 75-minute plenary on the Order of Business (2:30pm) is followed by the final discussions on the National Lottery Bill, which sets up a new lottery regulator in advance of the lottery licence being sold off later this year.

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

COMMITTEES

There’s only the three public meetings to see today:

• Food and Drinks Industry Ireland representatives will get the day going in the Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation committee, when they discuss the issues facing food companies in the grocery sector. Later, representatives from Microsoft will be in to talk about the potential for job creation in cloud computing. (Watch here.)
• Lucinda Creighton pops into the EU Affairs committee at 2pm to discuss the growing concerns about democratic legitimacy and accountability in the European Union. (Watch here.)
• The Agriculture committee meets Simon Coveney at 2:15pm for an update on the changes to the Common Agricultural Policy and Common Fisheries Policy that have been proposed under Ireland’s EU presidency, before hearing frmo the Society of Irish Foresters to see what it thinks of the proposed plans to sell Coillte’s harvesting rights. (Watch here.)
• Also today, the Health committee will meet behind closed doors at 5pm to finalise its plans for its latest round of hearings on the proposed abortion laws.

Explainer: How does a Bill become a law?

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