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

I welcome our witnesses. We have Mr. Jimmy Martin, adviser and former assistant secretary at the Department of Justice, and Ms Julie Dockry, assistant principal officer in the criminal justice legislation unit at the Department. The purpose of this session is to have a briefing on the general scheme of the criminal justice (protection, preservation of and access to data on information systems) Bill 2024. I will invite the witnesses to make their opening statement but before I do I must deal with some procedural matters. The witnesses are familiar with the format of these meetings. Some members are participating online and others are in the room. We will take the witnesses' briefing first and members may then have questions. I do not expect this to be a terribly long session but we will see what questions people have. I thank the witnesses for being available to have engagement with us.

I will briefly outline the position regarding parliamentary privilege. Given the witnesses' position in-house, as it were, they are familiar with it but I will state it for the record. Witnesses and members are reminded of the long-standing parliamentary practice that they should not criticise or make charges against any person or entity by name or in such a way to make him, her or it identifiable or engage in speech that might be regarded as damaging to the good name of that person or entity. If their statements offend in such a manner, they may be directed to discontinue those remarks. I invite Mr. Martin to make his opening statement and update the committee on the Bill.