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

I thank Deputy Cian O'Callaghan. I commend him on introducing the Bill and getting it to this stage. We are certainly glad to be in a position to consider it as a committee with all the witnesses we have present.

I will deal with the witnesses organisation by organisation. I will begin with Ms Counihan from Rape Crisis Network Ireland. She has three minutes in which to make her opening remarks and, of course, she will have time to elaborate later. For the opening statements, we just keep the time limited to three minutes.