James Lawless (Kildare North, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The witnesses are all welcome. We are still getting used to having physical meetings again. As we have had hybrid and Zoom meetings for a long time, it is something of a novelty to have a full house on both sides of the room with witnesses and members. It is a pleasure to be able to do so and it makes for a much better meeting. Forgive me that I am hoarse. I have a little bit of a dose but it is not Covid so I will endure.

Some of the witnesses will have given evidence in Oireachtas committees and some perhaps have not. I remind them to switch their mobile phones to flight mode. Even though they may appear to be turned off they can interfere with the sound recording if they are still active and I remind members to take note of that as well.

We are here to discuss the topic of an examination of enforcement of road traffic offences. The witnesses might identify themselves as they are called. I welcome Mr. Ciarán Ferrie, spokesperson, and Mr. Peter Collins, of I BIKE Dublin; Ms Andrea Keane, CEO and Mr. Gareth Quinn, central operations manager, of Dublin Bus; four representatives from An Garda Síochána, namely, Assistant Commissioner Paula Hilman, Superintendent Thomas Murphy, Superintendent Seán Fallon and Superintendent Seán O'Reardon; and Dr. Madeleine Lyes, chair, and Mr. Eoin Buckley, committee member, of the Limerick Pedestrian Network.

Most of the witnesses will be familiar with the housekeeping on privilege and would expect this in any event but there is a long-standing parliamentary practice that they should not criticise or make charges against any person or entity by name or in such a way as to make that person or entity identifiable, or otherwise engage in any speech that might be regarded as damaging to the good name of the person or entity. If their statements are potentially defamatory in relation to an identifiable person or entity, they will be directed by me to discontinue their remarks.

We may have some members participating remotely but we do not have any witnesses participating remotely. I take it at this stage that members are familiar with the housekeeping requirements.

We will invite each organisation to make an opening statement, to a maximum of three minutes. Some of the groups have four witnesses and others have two. The opening statements are per organisation, not per witness. You can share that or have one lead speaker at the outset. You can divide it up whatever way you want. Once the opening statements have been delivered I will call on members of the committee to put their questions in the order they indicate to me. One or two members have already indicated to me the order in which they wish to come in and we have a rota system so we will go around the committee and members have a seven-minute slot, which is used to direct questions and for responses from witnesses. A member can choose to push hard with questions for seven minutes or to start with a wide question and allow witnesses to talk back. Each member has a mandate and each one is entitled to use the time as he or she sees fit. The only thing I will do is if the conversation goes out of bounds or if the time is up I will move it on to the next speaker. If we have time there is a second round of four minutes each and there is potentially even a third round but we usually cover it within that formula. If any members are particularly interested in getting in ahead of others they can indicate, which one member has already done. Deputy Cannon gets first dibs because he is effectively a member of the committee for the purposes of today as the Vice Chairman has substituted with him. If any other members want to come in, I ask them to put their hands up and I will keep a note as they indicate.

I call Mr. Ferrie to deliver his opening statement.