Michael McNamara (Clare, Independent)
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Apologies have been received from Deputy Jennifer Murnane O’Connor.

Parliamentary privilege is considered to apply to the utterances of members participating online in a committee meeting when their participation is within the parliamentary precincts. There can be no assurances in respect of participation online from outside the parliamentary precincts and members should bear this in mind when they are contributing.

The topic of this meeting is engagement on decriminalisation, depenalisation, diversion and legalisation. This is the first meeting on this topic and it will be followed by a number of other such meetings on the same topic.

I welcome our witnesses, who are gathered patiently online, Professor Alex Stevens of the University of Kent, Dr. Niamh Eastwood, executive director of Release, and Ms Ruby Lawlor, executive director of Youth RISE. They are all very welcome to join us online.

I invite Professor Stevens to give his opening statement.