James Lawless (Kildare North, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the delegates and look forward to hearing their contributions in our discussion of the national mitigation plan. 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. Any submission or opening statement made to the committee will be published on its website after the meeting.

I welcome the delegates who will engage with the committee on the implementation of the proposed actions included in the national mitigation plan. If they could keep their presentations on topic, that would be great. On the format of the meeting, it is proposed that the main delegates speak for five minutes each. If delegates in a group wish to share their speaking time, that is fine, but five minutes is the total allocated to each group. Each member of the committee may then ask questions and will have three minutes in which to do so initially. There will be scope for a discussion to and fro but only within the time available to us. We will hear all of the presentations first before proceeding to take questions from members. Is that agreed? Agreed.

Before the presentations commence, there was an error in the Official Report of the meeting on 24 April.

The official record of the meeting on page 17 stated the following: "The expectation is that we will be several percentage points short of the 68% binding target to be met for renewables by 2020". Of course that figure should have been 16% and not 68%, quite a difference. I acknowledge the correction to the minutes, which will be reflected in the written record.

Our first witnesses represent the Institute of International and European Affairs, IIEA. We have Mr. Joseph Curtin and Mr. Max Muenchmeyer with us today. I invite the witnesses to make their opening statement.