Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

Mr. Collins referred to the ObSERVE programme. I had the great privilege of visiting High Island of the west coast, near Clifden where they were monitoring Manx shearwater, but it is the same with the puffin population or any other sea birds. They had to fly out hundreds of miles to their feeding grounds. It is complex. It may be changing because of climate or overfishing, for instance, but the ecologists and biologists who spoke to me described a crisis in the north Atlantic.

Those birds are a very good indicator of what is happening. Real alarm was raised about the distances they had to fly just to get food.

I want to ask technical questions around the exploration. The issue of climate is one thing, but I want to focus on the issue of security. I was involved for many years in the Corrib project, and was told at the time that it was an ecological fluke. It was explained that there was a particular salt deposit that acted as a cap, that it was a constrained geological formation and that it was a relatively small field, which is why we were lucky with it. There was one other prospective field nearby, which was drilled in 2010 or 2011. Everyone expected that it would be the same as the first but it was completely dry. Perhaps new discoveries have been made in the field of geology, but I believe it is much more likely that because all of the easy to reach stuff has been found we are now looking for the really hard to reach stuff.

Deep water is hard to work in, especially in the north Atlantic, and the costs are higher. If it is a massive field, perhaps providing 50 barrels, an investment might be justified. From memory though, when I asked during the Corrib gas exploration how gas would be brought ashore if it was found further out to sea, I was told that it is quite difficult to pipe gas ashore. Floating storage technology could be used; perhaps Professor Shannon could indicate if that is likely. I was told at the time that there was nothing like the Corrib field anywhere nearby and that we would have to go 100 miles or more further out to start looking for other such fields. If we found a gas field 200 miles out, in deep water, with no other existing field or pipeline, does the Professor believe that floating collection technology could be used rather than running a pipeline for 200 km? It would serve a single field only, and does not compare to the North Sea, where one could link up to an existing massive network of infrastructure. At a first exploration of a 100 to one shot field in the North Atlantic, for example, would the Professor think it preferable to use a mobile floating collection system instead of running a pipeline all the way to the west coast of Ireland? Would that not make more economic sense? If that was done, where is the security? Why would one bring it to shore in Ireland, instead of to Norway or the Shetland Islands, wherever the gas could be treated?