Liz McManus (Wicklow, Labour)

I welcome the opportunity to discuss legislation to ensure a modern and transparent safety regime for petroleum and gas exploration. It is an area that attracts great controversy, or has done. Local communities also express genuine fears about safety issues. It is not the only area where those kinds of concerns are expressed but in the Corrib dispute they were especially acute. Regardless of one's perspective on that dispute, it is fair to say this legislation flows from the fact that there was an ongoing dispute with such a concentration of concerns, issues raised, fears expressed and conflict of views and approaches. The legislation we see now came out of that experience.

It is a necessary measure. The question that comes to mind is why it has taken us until now, and only after a conflict, to do this and bring about a change in legislation. There seems to be a lacuna that was not addressed and which came into sharp focus only because of the Corrib dispute. One might look at the Advantica report which considered the safety issues, again because of the unrest and concerns that had been expressed. It states:

Proper consideration was given to safety issues in the selection process for the preferred design option and the locations of the landfall pipeline terminal. Quantified risk assessment techniques were used to evaluate the levels of risk to the public and deemed to be acceptable according to recognised and relevant international criteria. However, there appears to be no formal framework in Ireland for decisions on the acceptability of different levels of risk which should be in place to enable potential developers to gauge whether or not a proposed project is likely to be permitted and to ensure consistency of decisions made on safety issues. We recommend that consideration should be given by the Irish Government to establishing a risk-based framework for decisions on proposed and existing major hazard pipelines and related infrastructure to ensure transparency and consistency of the decision making process.

That is central to the work that went into preparing this legislation. If it is not fully transparent now I hope that by the end of the work we do it will be as transparent as it can possibly be, allowing for commercial sensitivities. I note that in 2006 when the report was published the previous Minister accepted the recommendation that he place long-term responsibility for safety for upstream projects such as the Corrib project with the commissioner for energy regulation, CER. That is what we are doing now. As Deputy Coveney stated, it makes sense to transfer responsibility for regulating upstream as well downstream activities to the CER. I have no doubt it will have the full support of the House. Currently, this is the Minister's responsibility but I understand it is not defined properly in law.

I am very thankful to the departmental officials for the briefing time they gave me and other Members of the Opposition. It is very valuable to have that kind of expertise available to us. The Bill provides for a comprehensive range of activities or, at least, oversight of a comprehensive range of activities, from the drilling of wells to the processing terminals. The idea is to have standards applied across the board.

I do not have a problem with the fact that the CER will be responsible for this and have this role, rather I welcome it. However, I urge caution in regard to how this will work out in practice. There is a fashion to move responsibilities out of Departments into bodies that are not departmental or quangos. The regulatory power and authority in regard to this matter is the CER but, realistically, the CER will not be able to carry out this new work without acquiring additional resources and staff.

Recently we debated the Broadcasting Act which set up a new broadcasting authority and I believe there is a salutary lesson there. It is the kind of lesson which, to a very graphic degree, was given us by what went on in FÁS. However, at a much more modest level it shows the inevitability of budgets going up when the State no longer has to pay them. In this instance, as I understand it, levies will be charged on the industry. When the broadcasting authority was established its budget immediately went up to €7.6 million from €6.1 million last year. That does not even allow for the additional €1.5 million that was added on in the last three months of 2009. However, the big difference is that the industry must pay these levies, not the State. Perhaps the Minister of State might clarify this matter because there is reference in the Bill to levies concerning the CER but, as I understand it, the State will no longer pay for the regulatory role. It will be the industry.

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