David Stanton (Cork East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Apologies have been received from Senators Bacik and O'Donovan.

The purpose of this meeting is to receive a briefing from representatives of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, UNHCR, in regard to circumstances faced by people who leave their homes and seek refuge in other countries. As members will be aware, this committee also covers the defence brief. I speak for all of us in sending our congratulations and best wishes to, and in paying tribute to the life-saving work being carried out in the Mediterranean by, the Naval Service on board the LE Eithne.Perhaps it would be appropriate for the committee to write to the Minister and Chief of Staff expressing those sentiments. Is that agreed? Agreed.

This engagement is timely as last Saturday, 20 June, was international refugee day. The briefing material for our meeting has been circulated to committee members. I welcome Ms Sophie Magennis, Mr. Enda O'Neill and Mr. Jody Clarke to this meeting. I thank them for attending and for giving up their valuable time to engage with us on this important matter. The format we will follow is that I will ask the witnesses to speak for approximately five minutes and we will follow that with a question and answer session. This usually proves to be very interesting and informative.

Before we begin, I draw the attention of witnesses to the situation relating to privilege. I advise them to note 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. However, if they are directed by the committee to cease giving evidence on a particular matter and they continue to so do, they are entitled thereafter only to qualified privilege in respect of their evidence. They are also directed that only evidence connected with the subject matter of these proceedings is to be given and are asked to respect the parliamentary practice to the effect that, where possible, they should not criticise nor make charges against any person, persons or entity either by name or in such a way as to make him, her or it identifiable.

Members should also be aware that under the salient rulings of the Chair, they should not comment on, criticise or make charges against a person outside the House or an official, either by name or in such a way as to make him or her identifiable.

We are aware that the Joint Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade concerns itself with issues regarding events that occur overseas. The issue we are discussing today concerns what happens to refugees who end up in this country, which is a separate issue from what happens overseas, except for issues relating to the Department of Defence, as mentioned already. I ask all here to ensure their mobile phones and other devices are switched to airplane mode so that they do not interfere with the recording equipment.

I call on Ms Magennis to make her opening statement.