Tommy Broughan (Dublin North East, Labour)

I move amendment No. 49:

In page 13, between lines 25 and 26, to insert the following:

"(14) The Minister shall establish a subsidiary oil exploration agency so as to facilitate a holistic approach to Ireland's oil and energy security.".

This amendment alludes to an earlier discussion. The Minister stated it is not appropriate to do what it seeks and that we should seek to establish the agency to which my amendment refers independently. I ask that one of the subsidiaries of the National Oil Reserves Agency be an oil exploration agency, thus facilitating an holistic approach to Ireland's oil and energy security.

Under section 16, the agency, with the consent of the Minister and the Minister for Finance, has the power to establish agencies under given conditions. I ask that an exploration agency be included in this provision. This is in many people's minds at the moment, obviously. It certainly occurred to me in the early days of the Corrib dispute, when a number of motions about the matter were discussed in the House. The Minister took a number of private notice questions on the dispute, particularly when four citizens from Rossport were in jail for 94 days. The crisis blew up when the jailing continued after the Dáil resumed in the autumn of 2005. The Minister agreed with me at that time, when I felt the petroleum affairs division of the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government had a dearth of information about the issues that needed to be resolved by the people of County Mayo, and Shell and its partners, Statoil and Marathon. The various reports on the matter, which have been sanctioned by the Minister, have made it clear that there was a dearth of information. There was some controversy about the basis on which the various consents were given by the Minister's predecessor, Deputy Fahey, between 2000 and 2002, as well as the basis on which Mayo County Council was able to give planning permission for the pipeline and the refinery proposal. I remember having meetings with the Minister and the Labour Party leader, Deputy Rabbitte, about these matters in the autumn of 2005, at the height of the imprisonment problem.

I have mentioned twice that the Minister opened a oil and gas exploration conference in the Burlington Hotel this morning. The subtitle of the conference refers to Ireland as an exciting oil province for exploration.

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