Good morning,
Well, here we go again. Having succeeded in stowing away cost-of-living payments for over a year, the Government has accepted that with its coffers bulging, its commitment to doing so was always contingent on the overriding political and economic circumstances.
With doom-laden warnings about the scale of the shock to energy markets ringing in their ears, Coalition leaders signed off on a package of supports last night.
Harry McGee and Cormac McQuinn have the details here.
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The measures aren’t of the scale seen during Covid or after the invasion of Ukraine, but should put (some) manners on soaring forecourt prices and provide (some) respite for the hardest-hit households.
As expected, they are time-limited – with the Government anxious to build in mechanisms that notionally will make them easier to turn off or extend. However, there is no way of totally defanging the politics of that decision when it falls due at the end of May.
The run-in to that call will fall just around the time two by-elections are expected in Galway West and Dublin Central, while Opposition politicians are already out of the blocks calling out the Government’s response as inadequate.
To emphasise the sheer volatility of the situation facing voters, as Coalition leaders signed off on the package world oil markets were recovering on suggestions from US president Donald Trump that progress had been made in talks with Iran – talks which the Islamic Republic says are fictional.
This is the terrain – uncertain and dangerous – which governments around the world must navigate.
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Our live story will keep track of all Tuesday’s main events here.
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Playbook
Cabinet kickstarts the political week in Government Buildings at about 9am: here’s what we’re expecting to be on the agenda.
In the afternoon, action in the Dáil begins with Leaders’ Questions, with Sinn Féin, Labour and the Social Democrats putting the Taoiseach through his paces from 2pm. That’s followed, as usually, by Questions on Policy or Legislation.
Taoiseach’s Questions is at 3.05pm, before the second stage of legislation enabling co-operation on the Omagh Bombing Inquiry. Sinn Féin has a motion in Private Members’ time at 7.24pm, followed by Oral Questions for James Lawless after 9pm.
Here’s the full agenda.
The Seanad sits from 2.30pm, with Government business following the Order of Business and again in the evening.
Here’s the full agenda.
The artificial intelligence committee sits at 11am, meeting the Courts Service.
The Irish Fish Processors and Exporters Association is in the maritime affairs committee at the same time, while the transport committee is undertaking pre-legislative scrutiny of legislation to scrap the passenger cap at Dublin Airport.
Ukrainian ambassador Larysa Gerasko will update the foreign affairs committee in the afternoon (3pm). At the same time, the housing committee will hear on the housing crisis in the Gaeltacht.
Here’s the full schedule.
Elsewhere, the British-Irish Parliamentary Assembly continues its plenary session in Tralee, Co Kerry.
The Irish National Teachers’ Organisation will brief politicians today on teachers’ lived experience of pregnancy loss.
