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

I welcome all members to the Chamber. It is good to see we are getting some use out of it, even if we are not here regularly. We have apologies from Deputy Costello, communicated to me earlier; otherwise, we have almost a full house.

The meeting has been convened to consider Committee Stage of the Counterfeiting Bill 2020. I welcome to our meeting Deputy James Browne, Minister of State at the Department of Justice with special responsibility for law reform. We will proceed with consideration of the Bill. Before we take it section by section, I invite the Minister of State to make a brief opening statement to put the Bill in context.