Damien English (Meath West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome to the meeting the representatives from RGDATA, namely, Ms Tara Buckley, director general, Mr. Colin Fee, director, Mr. Eamonn Gavin, director, and Mr. Hugh Doyle, member and retailer of Donnybrook Fair, to discuss measures to support business growth and job creation and retention in town and village centres. I believe the witnesses' own report, published last year, put members in mind of this topic and the taking on of this area, because while other reports have been produced since then, RGDATA's report was one of the first to really target this topic of the need to discuss the town centres. On some of the joint committee's trips around the country pertaining to the issue of the black economy, members visited a few towns, particularly in the west, where there clearly was an issue to be addressed. I thank the witnesses for their time and as I outlined at the end of the last presentation, this is part of a wider process through which members are going to get some action in respect of the retail consultation forum. It will meet again in the autumn and the joint committee hopes to feed into that process with a report on this issue as well.
By virtue of section 17(2)(l) of the Defamation Act 2009, witnesses are protected by absolute privilege in respect of their evidence to this committee. If they are directed by the committee to cease giving evidence in regard to a particular matter and they continue to so do, they are entitled thereafter only to a qualified privilege in respect of their evidence. They are directed that only evidence connected with the subject matter of these proceedings is to be given and they are asked to respect the parliamentary practice to the effect that, where possible, they should not criticise or make charges against any persons or entity by name or in such a way as to make him, her or it identifiable.
If that has not put her off, I invite Ms Buckley, who is used to the committee, to make her presentation.