Mr. Niall Cussen:

On the EIA question, my understanding is that the existing code has largely come over into the new Bill. To be blunt, there has been so much litigation in the area around EIA and project splitting that there is probably an abundance of caution as to how comprehensively things are assessed these days. There was some analysis some time many years ago about the number of environmental impact statements - or environmental impact assessment reports, EIARs, as they are now - that are prepared in Ireland compared with the number prepared in comparator European countries. We have set quite low thresholds and we have a huge amount of work in that area. There may be litigation on particular cases, and there will be the argument that something has been subject to project splitting, but my experience and my sense of it is that there is an abundance of caution in ensuring that EIA, appropriate assessment and all the different European environmental assessments are done as thoroughly as possible.