An Leas-Chathaoirleach, Senator Lynn Ruane: 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 be mindful of this when they are contributing.

The topic of this meeting is engagement on decriminalisation, depenalisation, diversion and legalisation with international comparisons. Committee members are interested to learn from the experiences of drugs policies in other countries. We welcome all the witnesses, who are joining us by Microsoft Teams. We welcome from UNITE, Dr. Ricardo Baptista Leite, founder and president, and Ms Beatrix Vas, drug policy co-ordinator; from the International Drug Policy Consortium, Ms Marie Nougier, head of research and communications; from the University of Porto, Dr. Marta Pinto, assistant professor; and from the Open Society Foundations, Dr. Kasia Malinowska-Sempruch, programme director of drugs policy.

I invite Dr. Baptista Leite to give his opening statement. I understand he has to leave early and that Ms Vas will take over from him to answer questions...

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