Clare Daly (Dublin North, United Left) | Oireachtas source

The problem is that stock has been taken of this process so far by people with greater technical expertise than anybody in this House and we can say with absolute confidence and without fear of contradiction that fracking is a tainted process. We know, for example, that Queen's University pulled out at the start. We know that the Dáil was misled about the university's involvement in the process, having been told of its continued involvement in June 2015 when that was not the case. We know the role of CDM Smith Ireland, which was already highlighted in the previous question. In addition, we know that the peer-reviewed studies and information on this horrendous practice should lead us in the direction of saying "stop the runaway train", but from his response the Minister of State seems to say the EPA is independent - it has said it will not do an interim report but is ploughing on regardless - and that he will ask it to do a report. Does the Minister of State have the power to direct the EPA to do it? In light of existing evidence, why would he not just direct the EPA to stop because this does have the hallmark of becoming a runaway train? We know that the evidence produced since the terms of reference were written is that 69% of research on water quality found potential or actual contamination. Those are most serious issues and all of the peer-reviewed research says we should abandon fracking not just get an interim report.

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