Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

In response to questions I put to them at a joint committee meeting last week, EPA officials made the extraordinary admission that following the survey that is being carried out, they will still be unable to tell us whether fracking is a danger to human health. That begs the question: what the hell is the report investigating?

It is also extraordinary that on all the key environmental impacts that are being examined, CDM Smith and Amec Foster Wheeler - one an existing member, and the other a former member, of a pro-fracking coalition - are the lead forces in this study. It is hopelessly compromised by their relationship with the oil and gas industry.

Is it not obvious that from a global climate and environmental point of view, fracking means producing more fossil fuels, which will do more damage to the environment and make it more difficult to meet climate change reduction targets and, therefore, if we want to be serious about contributing to preventing runaway climate change, fracking should be banned? The Government should forget all these useless compromise studies and just ban fracking.

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