Joe McHugh (Donegal North East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

No applications have been submitted and even if they were, they would not be accepted because it is clear fracking is not allowed. I want to give the steering committee time and space to consider the possibility of producing an interim report. The committee has produced a significant body of work and the research has been conducted on a joint basis. I have long been an advocate of North-South co-operation and I am delighted that universities in Ulster, the British Geological Survey, UCD and the EPA are sitting around a table examining this research. We will learn from that and I am asking and encouraging the EPA and the steering committee to produce an interim report at the end of January.

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