Mr. Eddie Mitchell:

Deputy O'Mahony spoke about future technology and asked whether we would accept this under any conditions. We would accept an industry if we could see a life cycle analysis of the industry. We will not see that with fracking. I am referring to future developments. The people in Leitrim and Fermanagh are pro-development. This is not an anti-development or anti-Government campaign. We are interested in farming, tourism and clean manufacturing, and we want our areas to develop in that way. If a policy was developed for an industry, we would like to get a strategic environmental assessment, health impact assessments and debates on the policy. We would like people to educate themselves about that and then to make decisions based on knowledge. That is the type of scenario in which we would like to see development progress. We do not wish to have it pushed in.

We are very concerned about the situation in Corrib and the way the community was dealt with there. That community does not feel it was dealt with properly and it is still in the same position as it was 12 years ago. We are facing a much bigger project on land in north Leitrim, Cavan and Fermanagh and eventually developing across to Monaghan if we follow the shale. In order to cater for our demand for energy we would have to exploit the shale. If we start to depend on unconventional gas as part of our energy mix, we will exploit the shale that is there. This will mean that over the next 30 years production will be moving across the Border counties towards Fermanagh. Therefore, we want to ensure that anything of that nature is debated in public and that people understand.

This will destroy agriculture in those areas. It will also do damage to our agriculture at international level. Given that we have a small population of 6.5 million people on the island of Ireland, we must consider whether the solutions people are looking to in countries such as Britain, Germany and America are suitable for Ireland. I do not believe they are. We depend on our green, clean image, so we should be very cautious. That is the reason we have been calling for a ban and for shale gas to be prohibited in Ireland.