Seán Canney (Galway East, Independent) | Oireachtas source

The Deputy mentioned the licensing regime. This is structured in a way where if the company meet its obligations, there is a legal expectation that it will be allowed to proceed. That is what we said about the licence we issued two weeks ago.

On issue of costs, the ceann comhairle has looked at the 12 applications for petroleum exploration authorisations involving the award of eight which are currently under consideration. It should be noted that petroleum organisations may progress from one form to another, for example, from a licensing option converting to an exploration office, converting to a lease undertaking, and finally to production phase in a petroleum lease. One cannot expect a company to do so much work and then tell it cannot go any further unless it is in breach of the regulations or cannot meet the high standards that we have in terms of environmental and financial assessments and all that goes with that. It must fulfil all of the obligations within the licensing regime.