Ms Sinead O'Brien:

I will take the first question on the water framework directive and the letter from the Commission during the week. Normally I would be sorry that my legal colleague is leaving now and not in a position to address the legal question, but actually it is a very straightforward one. The water framework directive came into force in 2000, and 20 years later we are not fulfilling the very basic requirement in the directive that says we need controls on abstractions. The Commission wrote to the Government to say it has two months to sort that situation out. The water framework directive says that Ireland needs controls over abstractions. It is a very elegant directive in many ways. It states that we need to control all abstractions unless it can be demonstrated that they are not significant. This comes back to the point we have been making, that to deem whether or not an abstraction is significant, one needs to know where it is and the impact it has on particular water bodies. If only abstractions of more than 25 cu. m are registered it means that significant abstractions are going to take place, we will not know where they are happening, and we will not know if they have a significant impact. The amount of 25 cu. m is a lot of water, and I believe it is the equivalent of 42 households. It is on that basis we would say the Bill is not going to bring Ireland into compliance with the directive that says we need controls on all extractions unless they are significant. It means that Ireland will be back in trouble with the Commission again.