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

I thank Mr. Kelleher very much. That concludes the opening statements. To deal with Mr. Kelleher's last point now, I will make the point to the Department that on any Bill that comes before the committee when it is performing pre-legislative scrutiny or any other task, it is imperative that it has the very latest updated version, rather than performing scrutiny on an older version of legislation, which transpires not to be the one that is published after we scrutinise it. That would be a key imperative. I thank Mr. Kelleher for acknowledging that. I have also spoken to the Minister about that because it is key.

We will move to questions. Again, I mentioned at the outset that Mr. Lupton is under particular time pressures. I appreciate all witnesses are here at short notice today. I propose that rather than have a normal around the table session in which members indicate which witness they want to ask questions, we take Mr. Lupton's questions first because he has to be released to get into court. I will do a quick two minute per member session for Mr. Lupton only at the outset. He can then be freed to go about his business. We will then take a second round with a wider gaze with rest of the panel if that works for everybody. It might be a way to get the most out of everyone's time when people are under pressure. Members may indicate to ask a question of Mr. Lupton only for the opening round. Deputy Pringle is first, followed by Deputies Howlin and Martin Kenny.