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

Before I formally welcome our witnesses, I will go through some housekeeping matters. Senator Martin has sent his apologies. Deputy Farrell has indicated that he has to attend another meeting later and Deputy Ward will be speaking in the Dáil Chamber later. Members will, therefore, come and go during the meeting, as is the norm, due to other commitments and business around the Houses. I remind all present to turn off their mobile phones or switch them to flight mode because they can interfere with the recording system.

The purpose of the meeting is to have an engagement on the general scheme of the Defamation (Amendment) Bill. This is our first day of pre-legislative scrutiny of a Bill that sets out to overhaul our defamation legislation. We will have two sessions on it, the first of which is today and the second in two or three weeks. We have had input from a number of stakeholders in writing which has led to the groups and individuals appearing before us today. We are delighted to have such a wealth of experience in the room. I welcome Ms. Karyn Harty and Ms Lesley Caplin, Dentons; the Honourable Mr. Justice Barton, now retired, before whom I appeared once or twice in the past; Mr. Declan Doyle, senior counsel and Mr. Tom Murphy, barrister at law, The Bar of Ireland; and Mr. Kevin Harty, senior counsel. We have quite a range of expertise and experience across the witnesses and we are delighted to have them all here today. We also have representatives from the Department of Justice with us, as is the norm. The Department has a standing invite to every meeting and has quasi observer status and today we are joined by Ms Madeleine Reid, principal officer in the civil justice legislation section and Ms Noreen Walsh, assistant principal officer in the same section. They are all very welcome and I thank them for giving their time today.

I will now give the usual warning relating to privilege. Given the people that we have in the room, they will be familiar with this already but it is important that I run through it. Witnesses and members are reminded of the long-standing parliamentary practice to the effect that they should not, in the course of their submissions, criticise or make charges against any person or entity by name or in such a way as to make him, her or it identifiable or to otherwise engage in speech that might be regarded as damaging to the good name of the person or entity. If their statements are potentially defamatory, they will be directed by me to discontinue their remarks and it is imperative that they comply with any such direction. Again, the reason most of our witnesses are here is that they are familiar with this.

We will take a short initial opening submission from each group. These will usually be three minutes and we have a timer to help people to stay on track. Then we will open the meeting up to members, each of whom has a six-minute slot to engage with the witnesses. We will have one or two rounds of engagement, as needs be. The three-minute opening slot might seem quite tight but there will be ample opportunity during the meeting for witnesses to engage. The opening slot is really just for everyone to say "Hello" and to kick things off.

Members can indicate to me that they wish to speak and I will determine the order in which they are called. We will begin with the opening statement from Ms Harty, followed by Mr. Justice Barton, Mr. Doyle and Mr. Harty.