Mr. Mark Griffin:

I will take it at a macro level first of all, and I will not dwell long on this. We are very supportive of ensuring an active oil and gas exploration operation in the State. We regularly meet with those who are interested in engaging in prospecting, those who want to take out a licensing option, and those who want to move from a licensing option to a full exploration licence and ultimately a lease.

In dealing with my own colleagues in the Department, the relationship with industry is very good. That would be my sense of it. They are open to sitting down with individuals who have difficulties and teasing through what their difficulties are. There is a process to go through, including initial prospecting, taking out licensing options, moving on from that to full petroleum prospecting authorisation, and then a lease undertaking. That can take time. At each phase during the process, there are certain obligations that the prospectee needs to live up to in terms of financial commitments and undertaking a programme of work.

We have to comply with regulatory requirements, obviously, but, having said that, I would characterise our approach as being very much open for business. We would be hopeful that the 2015 licensing round that will conclude this year will be encouraging in terms of the level of interest and activity that we expect to see. Operators are now in the system that have not previously been involved within the Irish offshore area, including the likes of Cairn, Kosmos and Woodside. Although the price of a barrel of crude oil has declined quite dramatically over the last 12 months, we are hopeful that when the round concludes in September there will be a significant degree of interest. If there are genuine concerns among individual operators in terms of engagement with the Department, we would like to hear about them and we would like to engage with them.