Martin Cullen (Waterford, Fianna Fail)

I have moved to meet some of the Senator's concerns but I do not believe it would be right to bring the period of review of licences from a minimum of three years to one of every two years, even, for example, where there is no change in the level of emissions from the activity or where the available technology to deal with these emissions has not advanced.

Paragraph (a) of section 90(1), which is the main provision we are discussing, is expressly subject to subsections (4) and (5). These subsections set out extensive mandatory and discretionary circumstances in which a licence may be reviewed earlier than the three year period.

Licence review is an important and demanding process and should not be undertaken unless needed at the particular point in time. Otherwise resources will be diverted from priority tasks. The section already provides strong, and I might suggest robust, arrangements for review of licences as it stands.