John McGuinness (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I remind members, witnesses and those in the Public Gallery to please turn off their mobile phones as they interfere with the sound quality and transmission of the meeting. Today we are dealing with an overview of the credit union sector, that is, the report by the credit union advisory committee, CUAC, of June 2016 entitled, Review of the Implementation of the Recommendations of the Commission on Credit Unions Report. We are joined by a number of witnesses, all of whom are very welcome. The committee has previously met representatives of each of the pillar banks. This week, the committee will engage with the key players in the credit union sector, which again is hugely important. We will begin our meeting with statements, but before that I want to bring attention to the fact that witnesses are advised 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 the joint committee. However, if they are directed by it to cease giving evidence on a particular matter and continue to so do, they are entitled thereafter only to 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 asked to respect the parliamentary practice to the effect that, where possible, they should not criticise or make charges against any person or an entity by name or in such a way as to make him, her or it identifiable. I invite the witnesses to make their opening remarks.