Steven Matthews (Wicklow, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

Good afternoon and welcome. Today's meeting is the first in a series of meetings where we invite local authorities to discuss their projections on delivery of housing from various different strands of housing that they engage with and the historical numbers of housing they have produced over the past couple of years. The committee intends to bring in a number of local authorities to examine this so that we can see where the progress has been made and identify some of the areas where there are difficulties or blockages and ways that we can assist with that.

I welcome Mr. Owen Keegan, Mr. Coilín O'Reilly and Ms Helen McNamara, Dublin City Council, DCC, and Mr. Frank Curran and Ms Catherine Keenan, Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council, DLRCC. I welcome the witnesses and thank them for the opening statements they have submitted to the committee in advance.

I will begin with a note on privilege. I remind members of the constitutional requirement that they must be physically present within the confines of the place where Parliament has chosen to sit, namely, Leinster House, in order to participate in public meetings. For witnesses attending in the committee room, they are protected by absolute privilege in respect of their contributions to today's meetings. This means they have an absolute defence against any defamation action for anything they say at the meeting. Both members and witnesses are expected not to abuse the privilege they enjoy. It is my duty as Chair to ensure this privilege is not abused. 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 they comply with any such direction. Members and witnesses 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 Houses or an official, either by name or in such a way as to make him or her identifiable.

I will ask the witnesses to make their opening statements. I will first call Mr. Keegan and then Mr. Curran. The format we follow is a seven-minute segment for each member. The seven minutes consists of time to ask the question and receive the answers. If members want to direct a particular question to a particular local authority that would be helpful. I invite Mr. Keegan to make the opening statement on behalf of Dublin City Council.