Ms Geraldine Tallon:

The EPA was introducing a new data management system. That was partly the cause of delay. We also had new regulations on urban wastewater discharge authorisations in 2007 as a result of which we required local authorities to put a system in place to apply for licences to the EPA. The agency issues licences and then monitors on the basis of these licences. The system has been a little slower than we would have liked but as the Comptroller and Auditor General indicated in his address, a data management system is being put in place and we hope the EPA will produce results in the year after the reports are provided by the local authority. The system the EPA now has is to transfer real time data from the local authorities and plants to the EPA.