Pat Rabbitte (Dublin South West, Labour)

The report from the joint committee deserves to be debated in the House. I appreciate the Deputies have not pressed me for a definitive response to particular recommendations and I think that is the correct way to proceed. We need to debate it first and this side of the House is very happy to engage in that debate and see where that leads us. I do not come to it with a closed mind. I note the record will show that at the end of his peroration Deputy Boyd Barrett qualified what he said by adding the words if there are significant oil finds in the future. That is the point. One must strike a balance between trying to make significant oil finds and scaring off anybody who is likely to drill for oil or gas. That is the balance we must get.

In response to a point made by Deputy Boyd Barrett, I advise my note, and it could be wrong, states that France applies a tax rate of 34.4% with no royalty payable. That is my advice and, generally speaking, I have found my advice on this area from the Department to be good and reliable. That is the big challenge that confronts us. It relates to Deputy Ferris's question and the Deputy was obviously right. Of course there ought to be a dividend to Ireland and to coastal communities, of that there is no doubt, but given that we do not have the resources to invest the enormous moneys we are talking about in terms of exploration and drilling, we have to attract in the companies that have that kind of investment. It is a delicate balance as between what will get them here and what will scare them away. The record so far has not been great. Deputy Boyd Barrett said we have lost X or Y. The position is we have lost very little because we have found very little so far.

My predecessor, the former Minister, Eamonn Ryan, changed the regime in the Finance Act 2008. He brought in a tax regime of 25% to 40% in 2008. That followed on from a review of independent consultants. I think it was Indecon which was commissioned in 2006 to do an independent review of the regime applying. The regime has changed enormously from the early 1970s. Going back to the old 1960 Act, nothing redounded to the State and that came from a culture at the time where everybody who went to school before 1960 was taught that there were no mineral resources of any kind in this country. Then we had some significant onshore lead-zinc finds and so on. As a result, what was proposed by the then Minister, Justin Keating, was implemented in the mid-1970s. That was rolled back in the 1980s because of the very poor uptake. There was a further easing of the situation in the 1990s. It did not produce results and then there were the changes introduced by the then Minister, Eamon Ryan, in 2008. Deputies Ferris and Boyd Barrett are saying that it is time to look at it again.

I repeat that I will be dealing with this subject in the Seanad tomorrow. I do not know whether it is possible for the Whips between now and the House rising to debate the report from the committee but, in any event, we are not likely to strike oil over August, so we will be here in September and I will be very happy-----

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