Noel Dempsey (Meath, Fianna Fail)

Thank you, a Cheann Comhairle. Even to drill one exploration well can cost in excess of €20 million in the area we are talking about. What the Deputies are proposing is that the Irish taxpayer foots this bill on a 20-1 chance.

My anxiety increases when we examine other aspects of what the Deputies are saying in the motion. They appear to be unable to grasp the timing in this issue. Oil prices are high. That makes it more worthwhile, as some Deputies said, to explore in areas like Ireland's waters that were previously out of bounds due to cost. I accept that many oil and gas companies are beginning to look at Ireland again. It is inevitable that technological changes in hydrocarbon production and use are driven on by periods of relatively high oil prices such as the one we are experiencing now. Those advances make profitable exploration more likely in areas such as those we are talking about off the west coast of Ireland. It is at times like these that we must use our available policies to best effect to take advantage of the interest in discovering the resources we have at our disposal. One day, no doubt, the world will have moved beyond using hydrocarbons. At that point the resources will be of no use to us, or anybody else for that matter.

That the Deputies opposite appear to be unaware of these realities is of concern. They would prefer that we would spend these vital years, when oil prices are as they are currently, creating a monster of a State oil exploration agency. I do not know if they have any idea of the length of time it would take for such an agency to be able to fulfil even the most basic of the technical functions it would need for oil and gas exploration in our waters. That is a good example of the woolly thinking and wrong-headedness in this motion.

I am nearly 20 years a Member of this House and I have never seen a Private Members' motion that was so badly prepared, badly researched and based on such misconceptions.

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