Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

Notwithstanding the clowning around, Deputy Durkan made one serious point on the environmental question and the merits or otherwise of bringing gas and oil onshore. He is absolutely correct in that regard. I believe most of it should not be taken out of the ground. For this reason, the State must have complete power of decision making in this area. If any of this oil and gas is brought onshore, every single cent of profit and revenue that is generated should be channelled into and ring-fenced for the development of non-fossil-fuel energy sources, rather than handed over to oil companies to be used to dig up oil and gas elsewhere. Deputy Durkan has made an argument for the complete nationalisation of this resource.

On the geological issue, the liquid assets pamphlet to which Deputy Paul Murphy referred helpfully includes a map of the basins. The basin that provides most of the gas and oil to Norway, which Deputy Rabbitte claimed has a unique geology, is continued in the Faeroe-Shetland basin and the Hatton Rockall basin. These basins are a continuation of one another. The basin that has produced Norway's gas and oil and the high strike rate to which Deputy Rabbitte alluded continues along the Irish coast, notably in the north west, and on to Newfoundland, where Canada produces most of its gas and oil. It is the same basin and, as such, the suggestion that Ireland and Norway are completely different cases is simply not true.

At the beginning, when Norway did not know how much gas and oil it had, the Norwegians stated that they would ensure the regime they established before the industry took off would mark and shadow the multinational companies.

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