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

We have a quorum of members and will commence our meeting. We are opening in public session. When the witnesses are speaking I ask them to ensure they are not on mute and when they are not speaking I ask them to mute their devices so we do not cut across each other. This goes for members also. It is straightforward but even though we are all very familiar with online meetings now sometimes we can forget. If people have headsets they may wish to wear them to minimise interference. It is not mandatory but if they have them sometimes it can help with background noise.

I welcome everyone here today. We have not received apologies to date from members but some may come in during the course of the meeting.

The purpose of today's meeting is to engage with stakeholders who have made written submissions, and I thank them for these, to assist the committee in our deliberation on civil liberties during the Covid-19 pandemic. This covers a range of questions that have been addressed in many of the written submissions and I look forward to exploring them further in oral testimony today.

I welcome the witnesses to our meeting today. We are joined by Dr. Pete Lunn, head of the behavioural research unit at the Economic and Social Research Institute; Professor Caroline Fennell and Mr. Tony Geoghegan, commission members of the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission, IHREC; Mr. Liam Herrick, executive director, and Ms Elizabeth Carthy, policy officer, of the Irish Council for Civil Liberties, ICCL; Ms Antoinette Cunningham, general secretary, and Mr. Paul Curran, president, of the Association of Garda Sergeants and Inspectors, AGSI; Deputy Commissioner Anne Marie McMahon, Assistant Commissioner Anne Marie Cagney, and Ms Kate Mulkerrins, executive director of the legal division, from An Garda Síochána.

Can everybody hear me? Everyone is nodding their head. We are all hooked up.

Before I ask the witnesses to deliver their opening statements I want to advise them of the position regarding parliamentary privilege. Some of them will be familiar with Oireachtas committees and others will not. Even for those who are familiar, the rules have changed slightly as we are holding remote sessions in a Covid age and I ask them to note the following. All witnesses are reminded of the long-standing parliamentary practice that they should not criticise or make charges against any person or entity by name or in such a way as to make him, her or it identifiable or otherwise engage in speech that might be regarded as damaging to the good name of the person or entity. Therefore, if their statements are potentially defamatory in relation to an identifiable person or entity they will be directed to discontinue their remarks. It is imperative that they comply with any such direction if given. For witnesses attending remotely outside the Leinster House campus, which is pretty much all of the witnesses today, there are some limitations to parliamentary privilege accruing from same. As such, they may not benefit from the same level of immunity from legal proceedings as a witness being physically present would in the normal course of events.

Members are reminded of the long-standing parliamentary practice to the effect that they shall not comment on, criticise or make charges against a person outside of the Houses or an official either by name or in such a way as to make him or her identifiable. The same goes for members and witnesses. I have already mentioned that the level of privilege does not extend outside the House as it does inside the House. Unfortunately, members cannot participate remotely in a public meeting so all members of the committee who are participating today should be present in the Leinster House precinct.

We have quite a few witnesses today and I am looking forward to the engagement. Some of the opening statements are detailed and some may have quite a lot of content. We have to stick to the two-hour limit. I remind all participants, including members and witnesses, to adhere to the subject matter as scheduled for today's discussion. Unfortunately, we do not have the latitude to have a wider-ranging debate because of various restrictions, primarily because of the two-hour limit. I will keep it on topic and if it begins to move off I may have to cut across people and I apologise in advance if I need to do so.

The provisions of Standing Orders also extend to any matters that are sub judice. If the topic does stray into any such matters I will ask members to avoid, if at all possible, comments which may prejudice the outcome of any proceedings that may be in being. I will not be able to permit any discussion that may occur in the course of the meeting that segues into current litigation, and I ask people to be aware of this.

I will invite each organisation to make an opening statement. Each organisation has five minutes. If they choose to divide that between speakers, as some of them have more than one person in attendance, they may do so but the time for each organisation is five minutes. Some of the opening statements have quite a lot of detail and I ask speakers to keep to the five minute limit. If necessary, I will flag when the five minutes have been reached to keep things moving. After opening statements there will be a round of engagement with committee members. We will try to get to everybody once and there may even be time for a second round of questions or observations if we get on well. The first speaker will be Dr. Pete Lunn. He is very welcome to the committee. I have enjoyed watching him on various programmes over the past 12 months. His commentary has been very useful.