Sinn Féin MEPs and the GUE/NGL group have voted in favour for all EU countries not to not authorise any new hydraulic fracturing operations.

Martina Anderson has today spoke after the vote was taken in the European Parliament in Strasbourg.

She said: "Taking into account the risks and the negative climate, environmental and biodiversity impacts involved in hydraulic fracturing we need to be active in our opposition, which Sinn Féin has been, in all forums.

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"However, it is disappointing, yet not surprising that the other two MEPs, from the North of Ireland Jim Nicholson and Diane Dodds, voted against this resolution, ultimately implying that it is acceptable for EU member states to authorise new hydraulic fracturing operations.

"At a major European Fracking conference that I held last February in Fermanagh, it was revealed that if fracking was brought to the north of Ireland, it would create a maximum of ten jobs.

"Therefore, the argument that fracking could boost employment is nonsence; the agri-food sector, the environment and the water ways, create more jobs than fracking ever could. All of these sectors would be under threat from fracking."

(CD)