TDs to grant themselves one week’s holidays one month after returning to the Dáil

The week’s holidays follow on from an extended break for the Dáil during the summer.

A little over a week after returning from summer recess, TDs in the Dáil have agreed to grant themselves a week’s holidays at the end of October. According to the Irish Examiner, the Dáil will now rise on Tuesday, October 27 and won’t resume until Tuesday, November 8 and although the break hasn’t yet been formally agreed by the Dáil’s new Business Committee, Chief Whip Regina Doherty has confirmed that it will take place. The Dáil resumed on September 27 following a 68-day recess, a break that was longer than usual due to renovations that were carried out on the Dáil chamber over the summer. A month to the day after returning, TDs will break for a week at the end of October in a decision that isn’t likely to be received well inside or outside Leinster House. “This is the sort of thing people will go mad at us for. It looks like we are looking after ourselves,” one committee member is quoted as saying in The Irish Examiner. Others, however, were more sanguine about the break, as it merely means that the Dáil will finish up for the Christmas period at a later date than usual. “It was decided to reschedule two or three sitting days and we are now going later into December (TDs will now sit in the Dáil until December 21),” said Fine Gael’s Jim Daly. “But it was non-contentious decision.”