James Lawless (Kildare North, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State for introducing the Bill which Fianna Fáil will support. The Bill has a long provenance. It will replace five Acts dating from 1940 to 1999. It was Fianna Fáil in government in 2006 that initiated work on the Bill; therefore, it has taken some time to get to the House. I hope we will get it through the remaining Stages in a shorter timeframe. The Bill is very important in consolidating, simplifying and modernising the existing legislation on exploration and the extraction of materials. It will make better provision for prospecting for and the development, management and control of the mineral resources of the State in the interests of better regulation and ensure that as many provisions as possible pertaining to minerals prospecting and mining will be consolidated. The Minister of State has confirmed that hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, is a separate matter and not related to the provisions of the Bill. It is covered elsewhere. The exploration and mining sector is an important one and makes a significant economic contribution in Ireland, employing over 3,300 persons. The overall value from the sector amounted to €810 million, with €56 million in taxes to the Exchequer in 2012. Ireland is one of the leading zinc producing countries in the world, with output amounting to €426 million in 2012, the last year for which records are available.

The Bill consolidates five Acts, the Acts of 1940, 1960, 1979, 1995 and 1999. As is often the case when a measure consolidates and tidies up so many statutes, the resulting legislation is quite long and weighty, but it has improved and simplified the legislation that preceded it. It was a Fianna Fáil Government that commenced drafting of the Bill in 2006. At the time there were a number of discussions at the relevant Oireachtas committee in which many of the concerns that might have been raised were teased out. A number of departmental officials also appeared before the committee. Among the questions raised was one about property rights. The evidence given to the committee was that property rights would not be diminished in any way by the provisions of the Bill. There is a right to drill in search of materials, as there was in the 1940 Act, and this continues under a new prospecting licence, but it is regulated, controlled and limited. Property owners have the right to object and have the Minister consider their objections. Of course, as with all such matters, they have the right of access to the courts as a constitutional prerogative. That remains the position under the Bill. The processes are being brought up to date, but the fundamental rights contained in the Bill are no different from what have been in place since 1940. The departmental officials gave this evidence at a relevant committee hearing at the time the Bill was reintroduced post-2006.

The objectives of the Bill are, in accordance with the principles of social justice, to exercise private rights in respect of minerals and ancillary rights and reconcile their exercise with the exigencies of the common good; to provide for the vesting in the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment of the exclusive right of working, selling or otherwise disposing of private minerals not in the course of development, subject to compensation; and provide for the preparation and implementation of rehabilitation plans for abandoned mine sites.

The latter is important because there is some degree of abandoned mine sites around the country. Their remediation, preparation and rehabilitation is key. It is, of course, a national issue but no less than my constituency of Kildare has them also. I would suggest that pre-1964, pre-planning permission and prior to the regulatory and environmental regimes that we now enjoy, standards were not at the same level they might be at today. That sort of rehabilitation and remediation exercise is much needed and is a very important measure to take. I look forward to its implementation, I hope when the Bill proceeds into law and is actioned.

There is greater transparency of terms, rents and royalties to streamline the permitting process and other acts of regulation of the mineral sector into best practice, while again having recourse to the constitutional protection of property. Environmental matters are, of course, more appropriate to the EPA and other such environmental authorities. The legislation establishing the EPA, as I understand it, actually precludes the Minister from attaching conditions to mining permits, which may have been designed to limit or control emissions to the environment. It might seem laudable, but according to the legislation setting up the EPA, the Minister is actually prohibiting from doing so.

Of course, it must take account of the obligations under the Aarhus Convention, which was ratified by Ireland and which governs the right of the public to participate in environmental decision making, their right to get access to justice and information and the exercise of those constitutional rights and protections as they are enshrined in the Aarhus Convention and in our Constitution. The Bill will take account of those in its enforcement when it is passed into law.

I will not go through the specific sections of the Bill, as the Minister has done that already in his opening statement, but I will note one point of interest. I believe my colleague, Deputy Jackie Cahill, will speak about dolomitic limestone, and the Minister alluded to it. It is a special case and the Minister has suggested he is going to look at it, perhaps on Committee Stage. As I believe Deputy Jackie Cahill is going to speak on that issue also, I will not overlap.

There are possibilities. As we have said, many of these mines were felt to be reasonably well understood in terms of what deposits were contained within. It was zinc primarily, but other substances and ores as well. It is of interest to the House, the Minister and the Department that technology in this area, as always, advances. Some of the mines, including ones I have spoken about, which may be in abeyance, abandoned or disused, may actually become, through technology, sites for re-exploration and reinvestigation. This is because some rare earth minerals have recently been discovered in many of these sites. I am talking about the type of minerals we find in the likes of an iPhone, some rare earth minerals that are quite precious. Things like platinum can be found. Often, I am told, these are found in what are called slag heaps, which are effectively the waste outputs of existing mining locations. These may actually have within them a rich, untapped seam because it was perhaps not understood at the time of the original exploration what lay within. It may be an apt opportunity to revisit some of those sites and to examine what is known within the industry as the slag heaps, which may contain quite valuable precious earth minerals, again within the confines of the Bill. I think that would be possible. I have studied the Bill and do not see anything in it to preclude that, although we may look at some amendments when it goes to Committee Stage if they are necessary to advance that. I welcome the Minister's and other parties' views on that possibility also.

The other aspect of that is it could be an opportunity to remediate such sites. If, for example, the slag heap of a disused mine was to be revisited, with the goal of re-excavation and extraction of those type of materials, it could lend itself to a parallel rehabilitation and remediation of the site. There are environmental benefits of cleaning up the sites accruing in parallel with excavation of potentially very valuable materials. That is perhaps an unexpected side effect of it, or an unexpected opportunity that arises. I want to credit Science Foundation Ireland and, in particular, the iCRAG research centre which recently discovered the technique that allows the further extraction of these minerals, which once were not understood and which it was not realised were there.

As I say, I welcome the Bill and we certainly will be supporting it. I look forward to further investigation on Committee Stage of the various issues I mentioned above. I will yield to my colleague, Deputy Jackie Cahill.

See this speech in context