Under fire Senate to sit for one and a half days this week

THE Seanad will sit for just one-and-a-half days this week, despite a number of its members attempting to defend the importance of their work against proposals by Fine Gael to scrap the upper house.

All 57 members will have a day off from normal business because seven of them are in Wales for a meeting of the British Irish Parliamentary Assembly.

The event in Swansea, which is attended by 12 TDs and a number of politicians from the North, Scotland, England and Wales, will conclude at midday today. However, the Seanad will not sit until 2.30pm tomorrow afternoon because of the meeting, an Oireachtas spokesperson confirmed.