Dr. Tom Ryan:

That is an interesting point.

Many of our prosecutions are taken at District Court level where, on the face of it, the fines on conviction are relatively small. For each charge, a fine of €4,000 or €5,000 is imposed. If there are six charges, there is a multiple of that. Even fines or tariffs of €40,000 are small in comparison with these industries. What is not seen during those prosecutions, between detection and successful prosecution maybe 12 or 15 months later, is all the work that goes on between the EPA and the licensed facility to secure compliance. That could mean the investment of hundreds of thousands of euro in infrastructure to secure compliance. That is part of the process that is not seen.

On the other side, we have the ability to work with the DPP to take prosecutions on indictment. Over the past three years, we have secured a custodial sentence on one operator, a fine of €500,000 on another and fines and penalties of €350,000 in another case. Once we go to indictment, those fines and penalties become substantial and persuasive.