Tommy Broughan (Dublin North East, Labour)

I am grateful for the opportunity to speak on this motion on behalf of the Labour Party.

I wish to clarify the point I made to Deputy Nolan. As I understand it, Norway came to believe that there were significant resources off its North Sea coast in 1968. The Norwegian Government effectively told the oil majors to teach it everything they knew about exploration, discoveries and so on for two or three years. This is what happened as Statoil was established. When the Norwegian Government felt it knew enough to start making fiscal policy in respect of its discoveries, it began to issue licences for the massive resources that it turned out to have.

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