Tommy Broughan (Dublin North East, Labour)

When the representatives of the National Oil Reserves Agency, NORA, attended a meeting of the Joint Committee on Communications Marine and National Resources, they outlined the status of the reserves. The oil companies, the major consumers of oil, held approximately 33% of the reserves at that time and NORA held 33% of them, consisting of wholly owned stocks and 7% in rented stock tickets. The area about which we, as public representatives, were concerned and remain concerned is the percentage of NORA's stocks held abroad. My colleague, Deputy Durkan, raised the issue of the security of those stocks in the hugely volatile situation which could pertain in the future whereby 34% of those stocks are either wholly held abroad or by way of tickets for rented stocks. The construction of NORA's current holdings was dealt with by the Minister of State, Deputy Michael Ahern. I ask the Minister, Deputy Dempsey, as a priority, to deal with this issue when replying to the debate.

We have been waiting for the introduction of this Bill for a long time. A number of energy Bills, including this one, are long overdue and they have been repeatedly put on and taken off the Dáil legislative programme. It has almost been like Lanigan's Ball. An electricity Bill was listed on the programme and then taken off, another electricity Bill was listed and we are told an energy Bill which was on the old list will be tacked on to that Bill as an amendment.

The Minister, Deputy Dempsey, recently trumpeted his energy awareness credentials and proactiveness in this area, although in his press statements and presentations he was mostly recycling the announcements made by the Minister for Finance, Deputy Cowen, in the budget six months ago. The Minister, Deputy Dempsey, is now only belatedly getting around to publishing a Green Paper on the future of our energy needs in the dog days of this floundering and dying Administration.

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