Fergus O'Dowd (Louth, Fine Gael)

Yes. The only ones that have been issued were issued by the former Minister of State, Mr. Conor Lenihan. He is the only person who issued a licensing option. Nothing else will happen until this research is launched. The Deputy does have a point, however, in that under the licensing option issued by the previous Government, the company will have an opportunity before end-March 2013 to indicate if it will proceed to the next phase, which is an exploration phase. It is up to the company to do that and we cannot anticipate what will happen. Even if it does that, however, nothing will happen until this report is in place.

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