I welcome all of our guests here today. It is great to see them and we can never take for granted having people here in person. We have the audience who are streaming the meeting and also the witnesses here to speak to us face to face. I thank them all very much for taking the time to be here.
We have received apologies from Deputies Mythen and Dillon. I think everybody else is either coming or going. Some members will come in and out during the meeting. It is no reflection on what is being said or on our guests or anything like that; there are other committee meetings happening at this time. We will also have some members joining us online as well.
I ask the committee to allow me to remember somebody in the sporting world who passed away quite recently. Dr. Una May may know of Kit Finnegan from Kingscourt, County Cavan. He was very well-known and renowned across the country but particularly in Cavan for his work in handball, not only as a player but also as an official and promoter of the game. Kit passed away recently. He was a dedicated promoter of handball from his teenage years onwards. He was an accomplished player who won an Ulster minor singles title and went on to line out in an all-Ireland senior doubles final later in his career. Kit was renowned for coaching and administration and really came into himself in this areas, and was a driving force behind the development of the sport and club at county and provincial levels as well. The magnificent Kingscourt handball club complex was his brainchild and he helped see that come to fruition when it opened in 2003. It remains a leading handball venue in the country. Kit also coached many all-Ireland champions, including his son Michael who is an 11-time all-Ireland senior doubles champion and also three-time world champion who held the position of county and Ulster secretary for many years. I pay my deepest sympathies to Kit's wife Philomena, his son Michael, daughter Catherine and daughter-in-law Lorraine, to his sisters Nan, Mary, Tilly, and Evelyn and to his brothers Patsy and Nicholas, and all the Finnegan family. Kit has left a huge legacy in County Cavan in handball and I want to acknowledge his passing. I ask the clerk to the committee to make that acknowledgment in writing to the family as well. It would be much appreciated.
I go on now to the business of the meeting today and am delighted to welcome all of our witnesses. I take it that the draft minutes of our last public and private committee meetings of 25 January 2023,are formally agreed and no matters arise. Is that agreed? Agreed.