Jennifer Whitmore (Wicklow, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

This is an important initiative and it is where we need to be going with a lot of our products. I am pleased the Minister of State met with the company and has contacted the EPA in this regard. My understanding is there are currently 34 applications on its desk. The time taken to assess these applications varies from five months to more than two years, and in some instances the timeframe has exceeded four years. These are companies that are required to get these determinations and they need clarity and certainty as they are operating businesses. For them to have to wait that length of time in order to get the approvals they require is not acceptable, when we compare that to Northern Ireland, where the exact same application would take three to four weeks. My understanding is that some companies are considering moving their operations to Northern Ireland, which would be very unfortunate, because our systems are not being sufficiently resourced or moving fast enough for them.

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