Lynn Boylan (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister of State. I will also speak in support of amendment No. 58, from Senators Higgins, Ruane, Black and Flynn, on the importance of the Aarhus Convention. It is well known that in Ireland we are very poor at engaging with the public in consultation and having access to information. I hope we can get to my amendment No. 112 on banning the importation of fracked gas. An example of the application of the Aarhus Convention is the fact that the Attorney General says we cannot ban the importation of fracked gas because of EU rules, whereas I have received legal opinion from the European Parliament research services and NUIG stating that is not the case. I believe the energy charter treaty is the reason we do not have a ban on the importation of fracked gas because it has an investor-state dispute settlement, ISDS, mechanism attached to it. We could ban the importation of fracked gas but we would face paying compensation of millions of euro. We can talk in more detail about that when we get to amendment No. 112 but I have been trying to get to the bottom of this issue. We cannot get the Attorney General's advice but, equally, when I put in a freedom of information request asking if there was any correspondence between Fortress Energy and the Department, I got a report back saying there was correspondence but that I would not get it because it had been redacted. I now have to appeal that decision. That is just an example of how poor we are at allowing people access to information on the environment.