TDs have agreed to the most comprehensive package of reforms in the Dail's history.

But some TDs have raised concerns that the changes will actually make it harder for many TDs to do their jobs.

There are even concerns that Leinster House may not even have enough room to allow all the committees to meet every week.

The reforms officially adopted yesterday will, undoubtedly, give more TDs a say in how business is done.

They are the result of painstaking meetings by a special sub-committee on Dail reform, including members of all parties and none, which deserves credit for tackling some longstanding problems with how Leinster House goes about its business.

As a result of their changes, all TDs will now have the right to table amendments to laws at committee level - and because speaking time is now given to smaller groups, more people can contribute to debates in the chamber.

But some concern has been raised about the impact of the changes to the committee system - often recognised as the most effective and constructive part of Leinster House.

The government's chief whip Regina Doherty told the Dáil yesterday:

"Oireachtas committee meetings and the Dáil plenary sessions will no longer clash. Oireachtas committees will now meet on Tuesday evenings and Wednesday and Thursday mornings with the Dáil sitting on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday afternoons and evenings.

"The new split will finally end the problem of Oireachtas committees clashing with important debates in the Dáil and Deputies being forced to choose between the two."

This is largely true - on Wednesdays and Thursdays the Dáil will now no longer meet until 12 noon, leaving the first three hours of the working day for committees to sit unencumbered. 

Bilocation - or even trilocation

This does address a longstanding issue for TDs, who regularly complain about having to be in two - or even three - places at once.

But Doherty's claim is not totally true. Firstly, some committee meetings are still due to take place on Tuesday afternoons, while the Dáil itself is also in session.

But schedule clashes are almost inevitable for some TDs anyway, particularly in Fine Gael.

The final report of the committee on Dáil reform said that where possible, membership of multiple committees should be avoided.

This is so that individual TDs can focus on individual subject areas - developing expertise in them over time - and not have to split their roles between several areas.

However, this will be an impossible goal for Fine Gael given its relatively small Dáil numbers.

Ministers traditionally don't sit on committees, so Fine Gael only has its 23 backbenchers available for committee duty.

But with 19 committees, and space for at least two Fine Gael TDs on each, some TDs will have to double up - going against the principle of giving everyone one job, and one job only.

It also raises the prospect that those TDs may be assigned to multiple committees which are then scheduled to meet at the same time - undermining the whole purpose of delaying Dáil business until later in the day.

Too many cooks... spread butter too thinly

There's also concern about how the number of extra groups will fragment the system.

Social Democrat TD Catherine Murphy was the whip of the technical group in the last Dail, which eventually became as big as the major opposition parties.

She told the Dáil yesterday: 

"Co-ordination in the first instance will be within the groups. Then there will be co-ordination between the groups and between the groups and the Government. That will make running this House much more difficult. The way it has been designed, favouring the parties over big groups, means that, instead of big groups coming together and co-ordinating, there will be a more fragmented arrangement with many small groups, making that much more difficult.

"I had some experience of that having been the Whip for the Technical Group, which worked pretty well in the last Dáil. There were 17 or 18 Members in it and no one missed Private Member's business or Leaders' Questions while Priority Questions were routinely taken. Members also sat on committees.

"The way it is being done here creates unnecessary fragmentation."

This sort of fragmentation - which is primarily designed to grant more speaking time in the chamber - is a particular problem for Labour.

Speaking rights are now granted to groups with at least five members, and Labour's group of seven would previously have been entitled to speaking time in the Dáil anyway.

But under previous systems, Labour might have been encouraged to form Dáil alliances with the likes of the Greens and the Social Democrats to command a greater proportion of speaking time.

As it stands now, the fragmented plans for speaking time will have a knock-on effect on committees.

Labour's depleted numbers now are a case in point. Each TD is now tasked with shadowing multiple ministers. Joan Burton is spokesperson for three briefs: Finance, Education and Arts.

Labour's numbers in the Dáil mean she will likely only be able to join ONE of those committees - and while she can still attend and speak at the others, the duelling could well end up sitting at exactly the same time.

Similar issues will present for the Green Party-Social Democrat group of five, and the Anti-Austerity Alliance-People Before Profit group of six.

Is there enough space?

There's also concern that the new fixed times for committee meetings could have another unintended impact.

The new system effectively allows for three slots every week where committees can meet - Tuesday afternoons, Wednesday mornings, or Thursday mornings. Leinster House has four committee rooms available for such meetings.

However under the new system, where committees have been broken down into smaller groups, there are now more committees. There are now plans for six 'standing' committees such as the Public Accounts Committee, the EU Affairs Committee, the Petitions Committee, and the new independent Budgetary Oversight Committee.

There are also 13 'sectoral' ones to monitor the work of ministers (there are 16 Departments of State; Foreign Affairs and Defence will be joined up, as will Finance, Public Expenditure and Taoiseach). 

This means there are 19 committees, many of which will hope to meet on a weekly basis. And this total doesn't even count other committees that may pop up, like the Housing and Homeless Committee which is wrapping up its work now, and the proposed special committee to write up a ten-year vision for the health service.

But with only twelve available slots per week, the clamour for meeting space will either mean serious demands on the Leinster House committee rooms, or a U-turn on the scheduling split between the Dáil and Committees.

With the Seanad chamber shortly to be put out of action for refurbishment work, committees may even be forced to meet in the wide wooden caverns of the Dáil chamber itself, simply to find a room where they can do their work under the watch of the public.

Gavan Reilly is Today FM's Political Correspondent. http://twitter.com/gavreilly