Mr. Dara Lynott:

I apologise in advance if I do not get all the questions. Members might remind me if I miss anything. The first question was on the CDM.

The role of the Environmental Protection Agency is the protection of the environment and as part of that, it commissions what it believes is world class research, which is peer reviewed. That is a core part of why it is looking at the area of fracking. I emphasise that no fracking is going to take place as part of this research. Ministers have said that no fracking would take place until this research is over and there is no guarantee that fracking will ever take place.

With regard to the process, the EPA's corporate governance is scrupulous in how it procures and how it delivers a process to determine the outcome of tenders or calls for research. This is a sensitive area of research. There was an open call for research and the agency did not preclude anyone from applying to do it. It was a worldwide call and we only got six tenders in but this would not be uncommon for large pieces of research.

The evaluation panel includes 27 existing and retired personnel from organisations such as An Bord Pleanála, the Commission for Energy Regulation, the Departments of Communications, Energy and Natural Resources and the Environment, Community and Local Government, the Department of the Environment in Northern Ireland, the Environmental Protection Agency, ETH Zurich, Geological Survey of Ireland, the Health Service Executive, the Northern Ireland Environment Agency, the Radiological Protection Institute of Ireland, University College Cork, University of Bergen in Norway and Ulster University. The EPA relies on an esteemed technical group of people to inform it that the tender process for the evaluation committee is coming up with the right decision. They came up with CDM but it is not CDM on its own, it is with the British Geological Survey, Mason Hayes & Curran, Ulster University and other universities. It is not a research study that can be dominated by one individual or group. It must go through the consortium which includes the British Geological Survey, a reputable firm of solicitors, Philip Lee, and other universities, all of whom have reputations to uphold. The outputs of that research must go through the evaluation committee of 27 members with all of the criteria. That is why I have absolute confidence that the outputs of the research will meet the EPA's own standard in terms of quality and peer review and that it will be second to none. It will be as good as any research the agency has commissioned in the past 15 years. The EPA's research budget peaked at approximately €15 million per year but is now down to around €5 million to €6 million per year. The agency has very good practices, processes and corporate governance in place to ensure there is no bias within the system and the research can stand up to any research conducted by any other funder in Ireland or Europe.

When it comes to the evaluation of outputs, the 27 existing and retired personnel on the panel from all those organisations have to agree. I have confidence in those personnel to deliver the type of research required. I agree there are documented impacts associated with fracking. We know that because the EPA commissioned a worldwide literature review in advance of this current research programme. The review found there is potential for groundwater contamination from methane migration, impacts from chemical additives in the fracking fluid, treatment and disposal of flowback fluid, greenhouse gas emissions and water usage. The EPA's own research tells us that these are issues which must be dealt in any involvement the EPA might have in an application. The agency is legally obliged to accept applications and we have a quasi-judicial role in evaluating applications. Therefore, the evidence and science by which we make the assessment of the application must be second to none and stand on its own two feet. The assessment must be able to withstand judicial review and as part of this work, the agency is trying to get the information that will allow us to make a rigorous assessment of any application that may come to us in the future. The information will be equally available to the public, to other regulators both North and South and to industries, if they wish to use it, as is all the agency's environmental data. The EPA is trying to move forward on an open data front that provides all its datasets free of charge on an EPA website and it is working with the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform to try to provide open data in a format that is of use to anyone anywhere in the world, and it will continue to do this.

Climate change is a huge topic. We have more fossil fuels under the ground than the world can take right now. Whether these fuels are extracted is a matter for international policy, European policy and Irish policy. These decisions will be made by the Oireachtas and the Government. It is purely within the remit of legislators and the Government to take a high level decision that fracking must not take pace in Ireland. Using this research, the EPA is trying to prepare the basic information that would allow the agency to fulfil a statutory role which it may be called on to fulfil in terms of basic groundwater data. This is not the only area EPA researches. It researches other controversial issues, such as genetically modified organisms and nano-particles and materials. Research is about getting data and information for everyone and putting it out there, it is not about arguing a particular point of view.