Joan Collins (Dublin South Central, United Left)
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578. To ask the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources if a company's failure to drill a well in County Fermanagh in 2014 (details supplied) invalidates its current application for a petroleum exploration licence, in view of the fact that it constitutes a failure to fulfil its work programme in violation of the terms of the licensing option, and section 13 of the licensing terms for offshore oil and gas exploration, development and production of 2007. [17835/15]

Joe McHugh (Donegal North East, Fine Gael)
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The holders of Licensing Option ON 11/3 agreed to provide my Department with data from a deep stratigraphic borehole which the company had planned to drill in Co. Fermanagh. This commitment was accepted as satisfying the requirement for shallow boreholes in the work programme for the Licensing Option. Provision of the data to my Department was contingent on the borehole actually being drilled, which in turn was dependent on the necessary permissions being granted by the relevant authorities. In the event that the planned borehole is drilled in the future then the agreed data should be provided to my Department.

In accordance with the rules governing the Licensing Option granted, the company exercised the right conferred upon it by the Option and submitted an application for a follow-on Exploration Licence prior to the expiry of the Licensing Option in February 2013. My Department has carried out a preliminary examination of this application. However no decision will be made on such an application pending the outcome of the Environmental Protection Agency’s Research Programme into the use of hydraulic fracturing.

It has been made clear to the company that no decisions will be taken on any application that proposed the use of hydraulic fracking in exploration drilling until the EPA Research Programme is complete and there has been time for the Government and other interested parties to consider its findings. The appropriate time for decision-making on the issue of hydraulic fracturing will be after there has been an adequate opportunity to reflect on the findings of the EPA research.