Paul McAuliffe (Dublin North West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The purpose of today's meeting is to engage with the Minister of State, Deputy Peter Burke, the Irish Traveller Movement and the County and City Management Association on the programme for Traveller-specific accommodation in local authority areas across the State. Deputy Ó Cuív is not with us but will join us shortly.

We are joined by the Minister of State with responsibility for planning and local government, Deputy Peter Burke. I will ask him to make an opening statement. Members will then be invited to address their questions. For the sake of convenience, we have combined the membership of both committees into one and will use the running order that is normally applied in the housing committee, which I will read in a moment. I call on members to remember to confine their questions to five minutes at first. We will have a second round of questions when, if possible, members will be able to come in again.

Members attending remotely within the Leinster House complex are protected by absolute privilege in respect of the presentations they make to the committee. This means they have an absolute defence against any defamation action for anything they say at the meeting. However, they are expected not to abuse this privilege. It is my duty, as Chair, to ensure the privilege is not abused and, therefore, if members' statements are potentially defamatory to an identified person or entity, they will be directed to discontinue their remarks and it is imperative they comply with any such direction.

I remind members of the constitutional requirement that members must be physically present within the confines of the place where the Parliament has chosen to sit, namely, Leinster House, in order to participate in public meetings. Members are reminded of the long-standing parliamentary practice to the effect that they should not comment on, criticise or make charges against a person outside the house or any other official either by name or in such a way that would make them identifiable. The opening statements submitted to the committee will be published on the Oireachtas website after this meeting.

In a moment, I will ask the Minister of State to make his opening statement. For the clarity of members, I will read the speaking order by party, so that members of both committees are familiar with it. We will start with a five-minute slot for one speaker from Fianna Fáil, followed by Sinn Féin, Fine Gael, the Independent Group, the Green Party, the Labour Party, the Social Democrats, People Before Profit-Solidarity and Right to Change. We will thereafter commence a second round of questions. I invite the Minister of State to make an opening statement to the committee.