Mr. Brian Breslin:

The legal right the property owners have is the right to object and to have the Minister consider their objections. They also have the right to go to the courts, as any individual has. A prospecting licence gives the holder of the licence the right to drill but, in practice, we have more than 600 prospecting licences at the moment and approximately 10% involve drilling. Many people spend significant money searching for our minerals and much of this money is spent in vain. We do not have that many mines. We had three major lead and zinc mines up to this year. One of them closed and another will close this year. We will be left with one.