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

We have received apologies from Senator Vincent P. Martin and Deputy Mark Ward. Senator Robbie Gallagher is hoping to join us but has another engagement. I will begin with the usual housekeeping to remind members and witnesses to turn off their mobile phones or switch them to flight mode so they do not interfere with the recording.

The purpose of the meeting today is to consider a Private Members' Bill from Deputy Jim O'Callaghan, the Firearms and Offensive Weapons (Amendment) Bill 2021. I welcome Deputy Jim O'Callaghan and our parliamentary legal adviser, David O'Neill, BL, to the committee and thank them both for being with us.

The proposed order of business is to have a briefing from the sponsor of the Bill, Deputy O'Callaghan, followed by engagement with the committee. We will do that in the usual round robin order. As members will be aware, sometimes we have a number of stakeholders and witnesses while at other times, we just have the Bill's proposer, depending on the complexity or otherwise of the Bill. It is up to the Bill's proposer what format they wish to choose. Deputy O'Callaghan is comfortable just having a discussion among ourselves with him as sponsor.