Steven Matthews (Wicklow, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I will come back in on this round again. My point follows from what was mentioned by Deputy Ó Broin mentioned early. Head 13(1)(e), which relates to "the case of a licence issued under head 13", proposes to provide for "consideration of the effect of the abstraction" on a number of listed categories, including human health, soil, land and the water environment. Head 13(1)(f) proposes to provide "in the case of a licence issued under Head 12, [for] the carrying out of an environmental impact assessment" but it appears that all the parts of head 13(1)(e) involve environmental impact assessment without not naming it as an environmental impact assessment. If an abstraction point is already there, was granted previously and has been running for quite some time, must someone retrospectively go back and apply an environmental impact to that or would it come under something along the lines of a substitute consent that one would have in planning? Can Mr. Ó Coigligh comment on that?