Ciarán Lynch (Cork South Central, Labour) | Oireachtas source

The committee of inquiry into the banking crisis is now in public session for session 2. This public hearing is a discussion with Mr. Harry Browne on the role of the media during the property boom in the lead-in to the banking crisis in the period 2002 to 2007.

At our sessions this morning, we are focused on the role of the media during the property boom in the lead-in to the banking crisis in the period of 2002 to 2007 and any changes in approach after the crisis. For the next session, I welcome Mr. Harry Browne to the meeting.

Mr. Browne is a lecturer at the school of media, Dublin Institute of Technology, as well as an activist and journalist. His journalism has appeared in numerous publications, including The Irish Times, Villagemagazine, The Sunday Times, Irish Daily Mail, Evening Herald, Sunday Tribune, The Sunday Business Postand The Dubliner. He has made numerous appearances as a guest on radio and television programmes. He has been a consulting editor on the multicultural newspaper Metro Éireann. His history research at Harvard, BA, and Columbia, MA, addressed Irish migrants in Britain and the United States and he has also studied US-based Italian-language journalism from the early 20th century. He is currently examining newspapers' neoliberalism in ongoing PhD research in the department of English, theatre and media studies at NUI Maynooth.

To commence with the more formal part of today's proceedings, I wish to advise the witness that 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 he is directed by the Chairman to cease giving evidence on a particular matter and he continues to so do, he is entitled thereafter only to qualified privilege in respect of his evidence. The witness is directed that only evidence connected with the subject matter of these proceedings is to be given and as he has been informed previously, the committee is asking witnesses to refrain from discussing named individuals in this phase of the inquiry.

Members are reminded of the long-standing 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 invite Mr. Browne to make his opening comments to the inquiry.