Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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I have two questions and two comments. Once a licence is issued, what is the mechanism for assessing at a later point whether the terms of the licence are being breached or the environmental conditions or the stability of the water table have changed and, therefore, subsequently amending or even revoking a licence? I refer to what is often called responsive licensing rather than the initial granting of the licence.

I presume there have been conversations with the EPA about what additional resourcing this will require because it is clearly a significant step beyond the existing informal regulatory regime.

We have had issues with this previously. Members of the committee from the last Dáil will know that we have often given bodies like, for example, the Residential Tenancies Board, RTB, significant powers but then there is a lag of 12 months before they get the resources they need because public sector recruitment or approval from Government takes some time. Do we know how many additional resources the EPA will need to comply with the regime as it is outlined and what is the position with regard to such resources?

I wish to make a number of comments that are more for the committee's benefit than the Department's. I want to see this legislation introduced. We should have done it a long time ago and we need it for good environmental management. However, I am less convinced now that it is legally compliant with key EU legislation. Perhaps the committee could consider in private session seeking legal advice from the Office of Parliamentary Legal Advisers on its compatibility with EU law and whether there are conflicts between parts of the heads and a number of EU directives. We did that previously with Land Development Agency Bill and it proved very helpful.

Deputy O'Callaghan asked a good question relating to other EU jurisdictions. If the Department does not have the information sought, it might be worthwhile for the committee to consider asking the Library and Research Service of the Oireachtas to prepare a scoping paper looking at other EU jurisdictions, the thresholds they have, the kinds of licensing regimes in operation and so forth. It seems on the basis of Mr. Ó Coigligh's answer on timelines that we have a little bit of time to work on this. I am torn because the principle of the Bill is really important but I am concerned about aspects of it and believe that this committee must look into those further.