Ireland bans fracking | The Jackal

15 May 2012

Ireland bans fracking

On Saturday, the Irish Times reported:

MINISTER FOR Energy Pat Rabbitte has reiterated that no hydraulic fracturing or “fracking” for gas would take place in Ireland pending further “detailed scientific analysis and advice”.

Mr Rabbitte was commenting on yesterday’s publication by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) of a scoping report commissioned from the University of Aberdeen, Scotland.

The initial EPA report would provide a “useful basis” for the terms of reference for a further study that he is commissioning this year with the EPA, Mr Rabbitte’s spokesman said last night.

This follows Germany declaring their country frack free and leaves just China and New Zealand as the only two countries to have undertaken fracking, to not change policy.

In fact the Minister of Energy and Resources Phil Heatley is in denial that there's any problem at all, even though fracking is irrefutably linked with causing earthquakes and there are numerous documented cases of water contamination in Taranaki and around the world... something he's at pains to ignore.