Jackie Cahill (Tipperary, Fianna Fail)
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Apologies have been received from Deputy Kehoe. Deputy Nolan is substituting for Deputy Michael Collins and Deputy Harkin is substituting for Deputy Fitzmaurice. Before we begin, I remind members that, in the context of the current Covid-19 restrictions, only the Chairman and staff are present in the committee room. All other members must join remotely from elsewhere in the parliamentary precincts. The secretariat can issue invitations to join the meeting on MS Teams. Members may not participate in the meeting from outside of the parliamentary precincts. I ask members to mute their microphone when not making a contribution and please use the raise hand function to indicate. Please note that messages sent to the meeting chat are visible to all participants. Members of the committee will be prioritised for speaking slots.

Today's meeting is in two sessions. The first is engagement with officials from the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage and the second will be with representatives of Teagasc. The subject of the first session is the rewetting of peatland and the impact on drainage for surrounding farmland. From the Department's peatlands issues and land designation section I welcome Ms Suzanne Nally, assistant principal officer, Ms Audrey Carroll, assistant principal officer and Ms Adele Shelton, assistant principal officer. We have received their opening statement and briefing material and these have already been circulated to members. We are limited in our time due to Covid-19 safety restrictions and so the committee has agreed the opening statement be taken as read so we can use the full session for questions and answers. All opening statements are published on the Houses of the Oireachtas website and publicly available.

Before we begin, I must read an important notice on parliamentary privilege. Witnesses are protected by absolute privilege in respect of the evidence they are to give to the committee. However, if they are directed by the committee to cease giving evidence on a particular matter and they continue to do so, they are entitled thereafter only to a qualified privilege in respect of their evidence. Witnesses are directed that only evidence connected with the subject matter of these proceedings is to be given. They are asked to respect parliamentary practice to the effect that, where possible, they should not criticise or make charges against any person, persons or entity by name or in such a way as to make him, her or it identifiable. Participants joining the committee meeting from a location outside of parliamentary precincts are asked to be aware that the constitutional protections afforded to those participating within parliamentary precincts does not extend to them. No clear guidance can be given on whether, or the extent to which, participation is covered by absolute privilege of a statutory nature.

We move to questions from the committee. I see Senator Paul Daly has his hand up, as does Deputy Harkin. We will begin with the Senator.