Ivana Bacik (Dublin Bay South, Labour) | Oireachtas source

As it is 11 a.m., we will resume with the second session. In this session we will engage with representatives from the Union of Students in Ireland, USI, the Irish Universities Association, IUA and the Technological Higher Education Association, THEA. I very much welcome our witnesses, starting with Ms Bukky Adebowale, vice president for equality and citizenship, USI, who is joining us via MS Teams. We are joined from the IUA by Mr. Tony McMahon, associate director for human resources and equality, diversity and inclusion; and by Professor Colin Scott, vice president for equality, diversity and inclusion, EDI, at University College Dublin and chair of IUA vice presidents for the EDI group. We are joined from the THEA by Dr. Jennifer Brennan, director of research, innovation and engagement and equality, diversity and inclusion lead, and by Dr. Allison Kenneally, vice president for equality, diversity and inclusion of the South East Technological University. We are very grateful for your engagement with this committee. As our guests will know, we are a special Oireachtas committee with a time-limited remit to review and make progress on the implementation of the 45 recommendations of the Citizen's Assembly on Gender Equality. Those recommendations, essentially, form a blueprint for the achievement of a more equal society. We have been conducting public hearings since March and we will be concluding in early December. We have already looked at public hearings on the recommendations of the assembly relating to constitutional change and gender-based violence. In this module, we are looking at the recommendations specifically on norms, stereotypes and education, which are recommendations 26 to 31. We are very grateful to you for your engagement.

Before we begin, I will read an important notice on parliamentary privilege. Witnesses are protected by absolute privilege in respect of the evidence they give to the committee but if directed by the committee to cease giving evidence in relation to particular matter, and they continue to do so, they are entitled thereafter only to qualified privilege in respect of the evidence. They are directed that only evidence that is connected with the subject matter of these proceedings is to be given. They are asked to respect the parliamentary practice to the effect that, where possible, they should not criticise nor make charges against any person or entity by name or in such a way as to make them identifiable.

Participants at the committee from a location outside the parliamentary precincts are asked to note that the constitutional protections afforded to those participating within parliamentary precincts do not extend and nor can clear guidance be given on whether or the extent to which the participation is covered by absolute privilege of a statutory nature. Having given that warning, I invite each witness to make an opening statement and then we will open the discussion to members and colleagues, some of whom are participating from within the parliamentary precincts via MS Teams. We have asked witnesses to limit their opening statements to five minutes and we will also apply a time limit of eight minutes to each individual engagement with the committee members but we can have a second round of questions if time permits before we draw the meeting to a close at 12.30 p.m. I thank you all for being with us today.

I will first call Ms Adebowale to make her opening statement on behalf of the USI.