Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent) | Oireachtas source

Parliamentary privilege is considered to apply to the utterances of members participating online in a committee meeting when their participation is from within the parliamentary precincts. There can be no assurances in relation to participation online from outside the parliamentary precincts. Members should be mindful of this when they are contributing.

This committee discusses dying, including suicide. Support information can be found on the committee's web page. I am delighted that we have engagement today with Professor Deirdre Madden of University College Cork, UCC, who is joining us online; Professor Mary Donnelly, who is also from UCC; and Professor David Albert Jones, of the Anscombe Bioethics Centre. I welcome the witnesses to the meeting.

We are grateful to them for sharing their knowledge with the committee and we very much appreciate their time.

The format is that after the witnesses have given their opening statements, the members will then ask questions. A member may ask an individual witness a question or address a question to all the witnesses. Before the witnesses give their opening statements, there are clocks on the wall and I ask them, inasmuch as they can, to adhere to the agreed five minutes if at all possible as we must run the meeting to schedule. I invite Professor Deirdre Madden to make her opening statement.