agenda.ie a guide to what's going on in Leinster House

Hey, guess what – despite Herself coming to visit, there’s a full programme of stuff taking place in the Dáil.

Well, I say full programme…

Tuesday

The week’s business kicks off with Questions to the Taoiseach at 2:30pm, with questions on holding cabinet meetings outside of Dublin and assignment of junior ministries top of the agenda, before Phil Hogan steps up at 3:15pm for Questions to the Minister for the Environment and Local Government who will take questions on Offaly’s shortage of fire brigades, turf-cutting in Roscommon and the household utility charge.

Leaders’ Questions at 4:15pm will no doubt be largely focussed on the visit of Queen Elizabeth and the Duke of Edinburgh, before discussion on the EU’s plans for a Corporate Consolidated Corporate Tax Base kicks off at 4:36pm. This revolves around a meeting of a Select Committee on the topic last week, which essentially found that the CCCTB plan was contrary to the Lisbon Treaty’s provisions of ‘subsidiarity’.

At 7pm it’s Private Members’ Time, which this week falls to Sinn Féin and a motion calling on the UK to release its files on the Dublin-Monaghan bombings. It follows up on a motion unanimously adopted in 2008 in the wake of the Barron Inquiry, which found that investigations could not be properly concluded without gaining access to the UK’s files on the bombings. Nothing’s been done since, so SF is trying to press Enda Kenny into raising the matter with David Cameron. Adjournment matters at 8:30pm wrap it all up.

Wednesday

Wednesday’s business is curtailed somewhat given the government’s requirement to be elsewhere for the Queen’s Visit. So instead of the 10:30am start, Leaders’ Questions don’t kick off until 1:30pm. Order of Business is at 1:51pm, with Questions to the Taoiseach at 2:21pm until around 3 or so.

Alan Shatter then steps up to take Questions to the Minister for Justice, largely taken up by individual private questions regarding specific individual cases raised by TDs.

The rest of the day, from 4pm to 7pm will be eaten up by the Criminal Justice Bill, which is Shatter’s Bill attempting to directly tackle white-collar crime. The Sinn Féin motion then returns to the table at 7pm, to be voted upon by 8:30pm, when adjournment matters wrap up the day.

Thursday

Given that most of Thursday’s hours are also set aside for that Criminal Justice Bill, it’ll be a fairly simple day: the Order of Business at 10:30am certainly won’t take long, and the Criminal Justice Bill will then bring us up to 3:30pm.

By then we’ll have Questions to the Minister for Defence – again, Alan Shatter, who’s going to have a busy week – which again will discuss individual cases, while Fianna Fáil’s John McGuinness also wants to know how many departmental credit cards Shatter has issued.

Adjournment matters wrap it up at 4:45pm, and the government scurry off to the Queen’s bash at the National Convention Centre.

All of the week’s business can be viewed on our live Dáil stream.