Steven Matthews (Wicklow, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

Everybody is welcome to the committee, which will carry out pre-legislative scrutiny on the general scheme of the Housing (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2024. I thank the witnesses, who have been in touch with us previously, for their attendance. We are joined to assist in pre-legislative scrutiny by from Focus Ireland Mr. Pat Dennigan, chief executive officer, and Mr. Mike Allen, director of advocacy, research and communications. We are joined from the Simon Communities of Ireland by Mr. Wayne Stanley, executive director. From Threshold, we are joined by Mr. John-Mark McCafferty, chief executive officer. From Community Law and Mediation, we are joined by Ms Rose Wall, chief executive officer, and Ms Mary Heavey, a housing solicitor. I thank them all for their attendance and for the written submissions they sent in advance.

Before we start, I will read a note on privilege. I remind members of the constitutional requirement that they must be physically present within the confines of the place in which the Parliament has chosen to sit, namely, Leinster House, in order to participate in public meetings. The witnesses attending in the committee room are protected by absolute privilege in respect of their contributions to today's meeting. This means they have an absolute defence against any defamation action for anything they say at the meeting. Members and witnesses are expected not to abuse the privilege they enjoy and it is my duty, as Chair, to ensure the privilege is not abused. Therefore, if their statements are potentially defamatory in respect of an identifiable person or entity, they will be directed to discontinue their remarks and it is imperative they comply with any such direction.

Members and witnesses are reminded of the long-standing parliamentary practice to the effect that they should not comment on, criticise or make charges against either a person or entity outside the Houses or an official either by name or in such a way as to make him or her identifiable. The opening statements the witnesses have submitted to us in advance will be published on the committee website after the meeting.

We will start opening statements with the representative of Threshold, following by the representatives of Focus Ireland and the Simon Communities of Ireland, who will deliver a joint statement. Finally, we will hear from Community Law and Mediation.

For anybody watching and for the benefit of witnesses also, this is pre-legislative scrutiny, PLS, and the general scheme of the Bill has been published. The committee will put together a PLS report based on these submissions after we hear from witnesses today. This is a split meeting. We will do one and a half hours with our current set of witnesses and then we will have the Department present before the committee for the second hour and a half. We will put that report together as quickly as we can. We were asked to carry out PLS on this quite a while ago but we were quite busy for the past couple of weeks in the committee with a planning Bill. We are delighted to get back to joint Oireachtas committee operations now.

We will limit the questioning and answering to six-minute slots for each member but we may have time to do for a second round of questioning. If a witness did not get a chance to answer a question that was asked, there will still be an opportunity to answer it even if the member runs out of his or her six minutes. I invite Mr. John-Mark McCafferty to make his opening statement, please.