Michael Creed (Cork North West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The European Court of Justice found that we were not applying the relevant directive and we then had to amend our licensing process to take account of that. That involved doing an appropriate assessment for all 29 bays identified around the country. That was quite an undertaking. I appreciate the point that Senator Mac Lochlainn makes that we are 11 years on from that but it was a mammoth undertaking and, as a consequence and understandably, a backlog of licences built up. This is reflected in the growth of the sector even within the constraints we are operating under. We secured permission for existing licences to continue to operate while we built the infrastructure to be able to make better informed decisions on those licence renewals as well as on new applications.