DID YOU MISS IT? You didn’t? Why not?

Sure who doesn’t miss all that craic, scandal and tomfoolery that goes on in Leinster House?

After weeks and weeks and weeks of doing nothing – except for constituency work of course – TDs and Senators return to Dáil and the endangered Seanad today.

TheJournal.ie presents our guide to what’s coming up in the Dáil, Seanad and various Oireachtas committees today.

4 things we’ll be keeping an eye on

• Dáil: Leaders’ Questions – the set piece event kicks off at 4.33pm or thereabouts as the Taoiseach Enda Kenny is expected to cross swords with Micheál Martin, Gerry Adams and either Stephen Donnelly or Seamus Healy.
• Dáil: Mortgage Arrears - Fianna Fáil’s Private Members Business at 7.30pm will seek to raise an issue that has been much discussed in recent weeks, the mortgage arrears crisis. How will the government respond?
• Seanad: Order of Business – With the referendum just weeks away expect Senators to use every opportunity during their 2.30pm free-for-all to raise the issue of their threatened future.
• Committees: Syria – The current situation in Syria will be discussed by the Tánaiste and Foreign Affairs Minister Eamon Gilmore with the Foreign Affairs and Trade Committee in Committee Room 1 at 4.30pm.

Everything else that’s happening in the Dáil

• The first debate of the new session will begin with questions to the Minister for Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht, Jimmy Deenihan, at 2.30pm.
• Topical Issues – still to be determined at the time of publication – are discussed at 3.45pm
• After Leaders’ Questions, the Dáil discusses the Order of Business at 4.54pm or probably a little later if that big clock doesn’t work and questions to the Taoiseach run over.
• After that the second stage of the Gas Regulation Bill – the bill for the reorganisation of Bord Gáis as part of the sell-off of its energy business – is discussed.
• The Dáil adjourns at 9pm after everyone shouts about mortgage arrears.

Still with us? Here’s a picture of a puppy as your reward:

(Pic: Flickr/Creative Commons)

Everything else that’s happening in the Seanad

• The Seanad discusses motions regarding an address by the ICTU general secretary David Begg and a motion regarding the commencement of the Oireachtas Inquiries Bill after the Order of Business.
• At 3.45pm there will be statements on the report of the Seanad Public Consultation Committee on ‘How lifestyle changes can help reduce cancer rates’.
• At 5.45pm, independent senators will be proposing a motion to ask the “Minster for Education to assure Seanad Éireann that History will be reinstated as a core subject for the Junior Certificate”.
• At 7.45pm Matters on the Adjournment are sure to provoke matters for debate before the upper house adjourns for the day.

Everything else that’s happening in the Committees

• Unfortunately for you and I the meetings of the Dáil Reform Sub Committee; the Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation; the Justice, Defence, and Equality; and the Fisheries Joint Sub Committees are in private.
• However you can watch the Transport and Communications Committee hold an engagement – their word, not ours – with Eithne Scott Lennon, Chairperson Designate of Dun Laoghaire Harbour Company from 11am in Committee Room 4.
• You can watch a Joint Sub Committee of TDs and Senators review Global Taxation in the context of Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS) – ie. the thorny issue of tax havens and avoidance –  with officials from the Department of Finance and Revenue from 2pm in Committee Room 4.
• You can also get your committee kicks from a meeting of the Public Service Oversight and Petitions which will discuss the public petitions it has received from 5pm in Committee Room 3.

Here’s how to watch what’s going on 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