Martin Ferris (Kerry North-West Limerick, Sinn Fein)

The Minister made the point that we do not have money for exploration and that we cannot afford it but the reality is that all exploration carried out by multinational oil companies is written off. Effectively, we are paying for it anyway. It does not make sense. Deputy Boyd Barrett referred to the amount of money we put into toxic banks to bail out bankers and developers. If a small fraction of the money was used to develop our natural resources I am certain we would be in a far more lucrative state than is the case at present.

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