Mr. Denis O'Sullivan:

I agree with the Deputy that I would not get on a plane with a 50% chance of crashing, but that is the challenge we have. I do not see that banning exploration or banning the provision of undertakings to those who already have licences and have moved on significantly in terms of developing those opportunities in any way contributes to the 50:50 target.

This means that instead of using an indigenous source we are going to use an imported source. We will probably differ on that point.

I refer to the Deputy's point on sale of gas to the State. I believe that is correct, although I do not know what commercial arrangements the field operators have. My understanding is that there is not an obligation but from a practical point of view, taking the Corrib Field as an example, it has no alternative but to supply the gas into Ireland. If they were to look at an alternative, they would have to go building costly liquified natural gas, LNG, infrastructure, which is not practical when there is a market through the pipeline. They cannot bypass Ireland either in terms of the pipeline, because physical flow of gas from Ireland to the UK is currently not possible. It has to go onto the Irish network. Beyond that, I do not know what commercial arrangements are in place for any of the other operators.