Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

If a company finds a field, it gets 20%, but if it does not find one, it does not get 20%. The same would apply for us. If a company hit a medium field, we would get 60%, but the company would not pay the 60% until the field produced oil. It is clearly written in the Constitution that we own all of these fields. It states: "All natural resources, including the air and all forms of potential energy, within the jurisdiction of the Parliament and Government established by this Constitution and all royalties and franchises within that jurisdiction belong to the State subject to all estates and interests therein for the time being lawfully vested in any person or body." If a company finds a small field, we will get 40% because we own it and the company gets 60%, plus the tax write-off on its development costs, given the fact that it took the risk to find and develop the field. The Irish people would accept this reasonable and fair balance, which has the endorsement of the political parties, including the Minister's and Fine Gael, the other coalition party.

I welcome the Minister's statement that he will re-examine the fiscal terms, but I am worried that, even before the ball has been thrown in, the situation has been prejudiced by his rubbishing of the joint approach taken by the parties in the Oireachtas.

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