Mr. Dara Lynott:

The reason we are interested in fracking is that under European law, the EPA would be required to license it. Therefore, we initiated our research into this area by commissioning a desktop study for approximately €5,000 to give us an overview of fracking and where it is at in the world. That laid out a number of areas that we needed to look into. From that, we have set up a significant research fund of about €1.5 million that is being funded by the EPA and a number of other agencies in Ireland and the North of Ireland. The main focus of that research is on hydrogeology and the geology of the shales that underlie Leitrim, Sligo, up through the North, and continue on into Scotland. We do not have a lot of ground water wells, bore hole wells, that would give us the kind of information we would require to determine whether there would be an impact. The research would suggest that the main impacts will arise from the construction of the wells and from the storage and transportation of water, sand and chemicals associated with fracking. To help us with the research, we set out terms of reference which we finalised this year after receiving approximately 1,200 submissions on what they should be. The terms of reference were finalised by an inter-agency group set up by a number of Government Departments, North and South. The research has been commissioned following a tender process and Camp Dresser & McKee, CDM, have got that research. It has just begun and it will take about 18 months to complete. There is a commitment that there will be no licensing of any sort of fracking in Ireland until that research is concluded. I presume we will know about it the next time we come back to this committee.