THE SEANAD today returns from its Christmas break - a full 29 days after it broke for the winter recess.

Its return today will see the latest in a series of piecemeal reforms to the way in which the Seanad runs - a series which has been slow coming since the rejection of the referendum to abolish the chamber entirely.

The main reform is a rejig to the Seanad's daily schedule.

Every day senators are able to raise a series of issues which they see as being urgent and which merit a response from the appropriate cabinet minister. This is similar to the 'Topical Issues' slot in the Dáil which covers four such issues every day.

Ordinarily the matters raised in the Seanad are not quite as inherently newsworthy as those raised in the Dáil - and they tend to be localised issues, in keeping with the fact that most Senators would still hope to get elected as TDs at some point in the future.

That said, the Seanad can occasionally strike gold with the issues raised as 'Adjournment Matters' (as they were previously known). One such issue, recently, was John McNulty's appointment to IMMA - upon which Heather Humphreys was summoned to speak to senators to explain her moves. Humphreys' poor explanation of events only added fuel to the fire and helped to propel the issue to the front pages.

In order to prove its worth, from today the Seanad has decided to rejig the schedule so that these Adjournment Matters are given pride of place - and so they're being moved from the bottom of the agenda to the top.

And, unsurprisingly, they're now known as 'Commencement Matters' instead - as they take place at the commencement of business, rather than the adjournment.

That's all well and good on the face of it - but it may have an unintended consequence. 

The other daily fixture on the Seanad agenda is the 'Order of Business' - where Senators get to raise anything (no, literally - anything) that's grinding their gears today. It's on the Order of Business where Ned O'Sullivan has raised his frustration with Dublin's seagulls, where Catherine Noone has demanded a clampdown on ice-cream vans, and Jillian van Turnhout raised the need to ban child beauty pageants.

Those sessions are now being moved to 3:30pm on Tuesdays, and noon on Wednesdays and Thursdays - where they will directly clash with Leaders' Questions in the Dáil, and immediately lose the attention of the media who will be more focussed on the latest questions being faced by Enda Kenny and Joan Burton.

You win some, you lose some...