Link to video recording of session, 11 July (begins at 14.25 minutes).

An Leas-Chathaoirleach, Senator Lynn Ruane: We have received no apologies.

Parliamentary privilege is considered to apply to the utterances of Members participating online in a committee meeting when their participation is from within the parliamentary precincts. There can be no assurance in respect of participation online from outside the parliamentary precincts, and Members should be mindful of this when contributing.

We welcome our witnesses. The topic of our meeting this morning is engagement on decriminalisation, depenalisation, diversion and legalisation. The committee members have been very interested to learn from the experiences of others in respect of drug policy, so I welcome our witnesses who join us in person and by Microsoft Teams. We have Dr. Cian Ó Concubhair, assistant professor in criminal justice in Maynooth University, where he teaches specialist modules in policing and the State and global policing. We have Mr. Nick Glynn, a former policeman, who is a senior programme officer at the Open Society Foundations and an acting board member of the UK's Independent Scrutiny and Oversight Board for the police plan of action on inclusion and race, where he leads the better policing portfolio. We have Mr. António Manuel Leitão da Silva, superintendent of the public security police and commander of the police of Porto, who also holds a PhD in psychology, a master's degree in psychology of deviant behaviour and a degree in police sciences. Mr. Leitão da Silva, I know you have only an hour with us so I will invite you to speak first. Then we will go straight to questions with you, which would not usually be the format, but we want to be able to get the most from this engagement. If the other speakers are okay with that, we will allow questions with Mr. Leitão da Silva first in order that we can then let him get back to his job. I invite you now, superintendent, to give your opening statement...

[Click here for the full debate on the Oireachtas website]