Jerry Buttimer (Cork South Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I remind members that their mobile telephones must be turned off. We will deal with correspondence and the minutes of our previous meeting at our meeting on Thursday morning. Apologies have been received from Deputy Catherine Byrne and Deputy Billy Kelleher.

I welcome to our meeting Dr. Geoffrey Shannon, the special rapporteur on child protection, who is here to discuss his sixth and most recent report on child protection and related matters. The report has been circulated to members and it makes for an interesting and challenging presentation. I reiterate my thanks to Dr. Shannon for the sterling work he does and his promulgation of children's rights and causes. We are fortunate to have a person of his calibre before our committee and I thank him for attending. He has shown great leadership and has been in the vanguard of the promotion and articulation of rights. His report covers vast areas in terms of developments in international law, the many facets of bullying, guardianship of children, domestic issues and cross-Border co-operation on the fight against bullying.

Before we commence I remind people regarding privilege. Witnesses are protected by absolute privilege in respect of the evidence they give to the committee. However, if they are directed by it to cease giving evidence on a particular matter and they continue to do so, they are entitled thereafter only to qualified privilege in respect of their evidence. They are directed that only evidence connected to the matters under discussion should be given and are asked to respect the parliamentary practice to the effect that, where possible, they should not criticise or make charges against a person or an entity by name or in such a way as to make him, her or it identifiable. Members are reminded of the long-standing parliamentary practice and ruling of the Chair to the effect that they should not comment on, criticise or make charges against a person outside the Houses or an official by name or in such a way as to make him or her identifiable.

I call Dr. Geoffrey Shannon to make his opening remarks. I will allocate half an hour to Dr. Shannon to make his remarks to cover the wide scope of the presentation.