Bríd Smith (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance)
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This is with all due respect to everybody who has waited so long for this session to begin and to the people in the Gallery. As I mentioned to the Chairman earlier, I am baffled as to why we are going through this process of looking at the EPA report and hearing from CDM Smith on the question of fracking. I am baffled because the Bill, the purpose of which is to ban fracking, passed Second Stage in the Dáil and that is the reality with which we should be dealing now. We should be scrutinising the tightness and clarity of that Bill, rather than going through the facts - or the lack of facts - yet again, hearing the opinions of various bodies that think fracking should or should not have a place in Ireland or discussing reports from the EPA on whether those opinions are valid. We dealt with all of that in the Dáil. On Second Stage in the Dáil, it was quite clear that the sentiment of Deputies was that we disagree with this, that and the other on the EPA report and that CDM Smith is compromised. We want to move on now and get this Bill through.