Presenter Laura Byrne is joined this week by Gavan Reilly, political correspondent with Virgin Media News, to look behind the scenes at Oireachtas committees, from the grandstanding to the selection process, as well as to analyse previous appearances by John Delaney, Angela Kerins, and - of course - Ryan Tubridy.

The Explainer is brought to you by The Journal. Providing open access to valuable journalism in Ireland has been the aim of The Journal for a decade. You can contribute to ensure we can keep questioning, investigating, debunking, explaining and informing at www.thejournal.ie/contribute/

How do Oireachtas committees work, and how did Tubridy end up in front of one?

The Explainer is a weekly podcast from The Journal that takes a deeper look at one big news story you need to know about. What's the background?  Why is this in the news?  Get the facts behind the story from Ireland's biggest news website.

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We're joined by Paul McCutcheon, a professor of Law at the University of Limerick to examine how exactly sentencing works. What factors do judges take into account? What guidance do they rely on? And how is that some judges deliver sentences that look very different to those of their peers?

How does sentencing work in Ireland?

Trans healthcare and a dearth of services for trans people have been in the news lately on the back of a major review of UK services. Assistant News Editor Valerie Flynn joins us to explore its findings - and with the care it needs, as it is vulnerable children at the heart of this healthcare story. What did the report say about treatment options like puberty blockers? What type of overhaul of the services did it recommend? And what does it mean for Ireland?

The Explainer is brought to you by The Journal. Providing open access to valuable journalism in Ireland has been the aim of The Journal for a decade. You can contribute to ensure we can keep questioning, investigating, debunking, explaining and informing at www.thejournal.ie/contribute/

What does a major review tell us about trans healthcare?

Susan Daly talks with Noteworthy's Steven Fox and German reporter Swantje Furtak about the lack of preservation of bogs in Ireland and Germany. These were part of an extensive cross-border investigation with reporters based in Germany and Italy.

Steven focused on actions by two State companies — Coillte and Bord na Móna — and looked at the planting of forestry and development of wind farms on our precious peatland. This comes as Ireland has just been referred by the European Commission to the European Court of Justice over the State’s failure to halt industrial peat extraction.

By Noteworthy: Why are our peatlands still being exploited?

The Journal's Eoghan Dalton speaks to Laura Byrne about the State inquiry into the abuse of prolific child abuser, Bill Kenneally. It is examining how State agencies and organisations handled reports of his crimes from the 1980s onwards. During his appearance, Kenneally was unrepentant, causing upset to those in attendance, including his victims. So, what did we learn, if anything via this inquiry about the mindset of this abuser and the handling of his case by authorities over many years?

The Explainer is brought to you by The Journal. Providing open access to valuable journalism in Ireland has been the aim of The Journal for a decade. You can contribute to ensure we can keep questioning, investigating, debunking, explaining and informing at www.thejournal.ie/contribute/

The State inquiry into the Bill Kenneally case - what have we learned so far?

The European Union has a massive but often unseen impact on our day-to-day life here in Ireland. Despite that, how exactly it all works can remain a bit of a mystery for a lot of people. John O’Brennan, a professor at the Department of Sociology at Maynooth University, leaves the Brussels jargon to one side and focuses on what the core institutions are and how they all interact with each other.

The Explainer is brought to you by The Journal. Providing open access to valuable journalism in Ireland has been the aim of The Journal for a decade. You can contribute to ensure we can keep questioning, investigating, debunking, explaining and informing at www.thejournal.ie/contribute/

This work is co-funded by Journal Media and a grant programme from the European Parliament. Any opinions or conclusions expressed in this work are the author’s own. The European Parliament has no involvement in nor responsibility for the editorial content published by the project. For more information, see here.

How do Oireachtas committees work, and how did Tubridy end up in front of one?

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