Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Independent)

The Shell to Sea campaign has done this country a service in that it drew attention to the great resource giveaway. The Atlantic margin off the west coast contains 10 billion barrels of oil equivalent, amounting to €800 billion at 2011 prices. Although very considerable sums have been expended in finding and extracting that gas the fact that we get little or no return on it is a complete scandal. We have not only given away this resource, which is increasing in value all the time, but have given away security of supply. In addition, we will not get much needed onshore jobs and in return will have to pay the full international market price to reimport the product.

International studies seem to show Ireland is at the bottom of the league in terms of state share of revenue in contrast with most countries which retain either some of the revenue or, at very least, some control. A disgraceful decision was made on the day the last Government fell, whereby a licence to explore onshore gas in the Lough Allen basin was granted although an estimate of a potential €94 billion of gas could be extracted there. That is not a deep-sea area and the gas would be cheaper to extract.

At a time when we are counting our pennies in terms of the public services - the Minister will know all about the penny-pinching that has to go on - we are giving this away, directly. It is an absolute disgrace. At the very least those contracts need to be revisited and altered in order that there is a return for the people of this country.

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