Fergus O'Dowd (Louth, Fine Gael)
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Our witnesses, Mr. John Teggart, Ms Carmel Quinn and Pádraig Ó Muirigh from Ó Muirigh Solicitors are waiting.

I will go through the process before we introduce our witnesses and they make their address. Apologies have been received from Senator Rónán Mullen. So that our witness will understand, these are merely routine points I must make.

All Members of the Oireachtas should attend this meeting remotely from their offices within the Leinster House campus. Remote participation from outside the campus is not possible. If there is unwanted feedback, it may be necessary to mute everyone and the person speaking can then unmute himself or herself. I ask everyone to stay muted unless he or she is contributing.

As usual, I propose to call members in the following rota order and time limits, repeating as time allows. At the previous meeting, we extended the speaking time for each individual group from ten to 15 minutes to include answers to questions and that worked well. If the members accept that we do that, I will try and do that on this occasion. In other words, as we rotate through the parties, the party and our witnesses have 15 minutes whichever way the party and, of course, the witnesses want to manage that, and after that we will rotate it. As the members will be aware, there is a two-hour limit. Is that agreed? Agreed.

The rotation is as per the clerk to the committee has indicated. On this occasion, the first group is Fine Gael, followed by Sinn Féin, Fianna Fáil, the SDLP, the Alliance Party, Independents, Aontú, Sinn Féin, the Labour Party and the Green Party. Is that agreed? Agreed. We will proceed on that basis, except we will provide 15 minutes. After ten minutes, I will advise the person who is speaking that there is five minutes left in that slot. That is the fairest way. If you do not use up all your time, it will mean that you will get back in again when it comes around.

Our engagement today is with the representatives of the Ballymurphy families: Mr. John Teggart, son of Daniel Teggart, deceased; Ms Carmel Quinn, sister of Mr. John Laverty, deceased; and Pádraig Ó Muirigh from Ó Muirigh Solicitors. On behalf of the committee, I welcome them to today's meeting. I must read a privilege wording that I must say legally to the witnesses. It applies to every witness. It is not specific to the witnesses personally. We say this at every meeting.

The evidence of witnesses physically present or who give evidence from within the parliamentary precincts is protected pursuant to both the Constitution and statute by absolute privilege. However, witnesses and participants who are to give evidence from a location outside the parliamentary precincts are asked to note that they may not benefit from the same level of immunity from legal proceedings as a witness giving evidence from within the parliamentary precincts does and may consider it appropriate to take legal advice on this matter.

Witnesses are also asked to note that only evidence connected with the subject matter of the proceedings should be given. They should respect directions given by the Chair and the parliamentary practice to the effect that, where possible, they should neither criticise nor make charges against any person, persons or entity by name or in such a way as to make him, her or it identifiable or otherwise engage in speech that might be regarded as damaging to the person or entity's good name.

That is a standard speech I make at every meeting and there is nothing different about today as opposed to other days.

The witnesses are very welcome. I appreciate fully the difficult, hard-fought battle they have had for more than 50 years to get into the public domain the absolute certainty that their family members who died on that day were entirely innocent, that many of them were shot in the back and that it is a searing indictment of the crimes that were committed on their family members more than 50 years ago. It was an indiscriminate use of force. It was an atrocity. It is a damning indictment of the past in our island. I ask the witnesses now to make their opening statement.