Seán Fleming (Laois, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

He probably knows a little bit more than the rest of us. We decided that we needed to inform ourselves, and we are pleased to have so many people appearing before us today. We thank them all for coming. All of the information we are using and gathering will be distilled in due course. When we speak to the Department about the national broadband plan and other issues we will be far better informed than we were at 9 o'clock this morning. That is the purpose of this meeting, and we thank the witnesses in advance for providing information.

I want to stress that we are not here to examine the financial statements of the witnesses. They are here to help us. We are not here to interrogate them. If the witnesses are asked a question about the Department that they feel is more appropriate for the Department to answer they can tell us. Please do not hold back on that issue.

I welcome Mr. Peter McCarthy, chief executive officer of Enet. He is accompanied by Mr. David Eyre, chief commercial officer, and Ms Claire Murphy, general counsel. I remind everyone in the room to put their mobile phones on to airplane mode or to switch them off; merely putting them onto silent mode can still interfere with the recording system.

I advise witnesses to the fact that by virtue of section 17(2)(l) of the Defamation Act 2009, they are protected by absolute privilege in respect of the evidence they give to the joint committee. If, however, they are directed by it to cease giving evidence on a particular matter and continue to do so, 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 Mr. McCarthy to make his opening statement.