Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I will not take long. If the Deputy wants to follow me, it should not be a long delay. I join the other Deputies in commending the officials for getting this Bill into the Dáil, hopefully to be enacted in a reasonably short period of time. It has been over ten years in preparation. In my time as Minister in the former Department, I remember having a series of meeting with officials. It was very interesting. It was not deeply contentious but at the same time it was important that we got it right. This legislation is extensive. It will not necessarily affect most citizens but it is important that we order the development of mining in this country in a sustainable and proper fashion. The importance of that was drawn out.

I was interested to hear the update on the Lisheen mine today. I hope it was closed in an orderly fashion. We compared that with other instances, in particular the Silvermines site, which I am familiar with, where companies left behind a scar on the landscape. There were huge tailings ponds that were unstable and I was concerned to hear today in the debate that some of the restorative measures that have been put in place may again be threatened due to land use practices and other issues in the area. If the deposits there are exposed again and we start getting run-off into the water system of arsenic, cadmium and all sorts of pollutants, it will be of huge concern to people in that part of the country, in Tipperary and beyond.

The issue is the extent and duration of the pollution that can be caused. I will take the example of the Avoca River and the waters in Glendalough. Many people are very familiar with the stunning Spinc walk around the mountains in our beautiful valley of Glendalough. When one looks down, one sees that the tailponds are still there 50 years after the closure of the mines. The Avoca River is highly polluted. What should be a stunning and pristine river suffers from very severe pollution which is not easy to remediate because of the legacy issue of how mining was left unregulated.

It is important we get this right. It is important we make sure that mining companies are responsible and that we have the proper guarantees in the State that any work being done will be done with due care. There are particular examples where we face difficult choices. A famous example down through the years is the seam of potential gold deposits on the southern and western sides of Croagh Patrick in County Mayo. We had to make strategic decisions to say it was not an area we would mine because it is too sensitive and too important an area for historical, tourism and cultural reasons. It might be an inappropriate mining analogy to say that one often takes these things with a pinch of salt. When people say they have discovered gold again, for example in County Monaghan, one has two feelings about it. One might think it is a good economic opportunity but when one realises what a lot of gold processing requires there are significant instances where we will not exploit those mineral resources because the environmental costs are too high.

I have an interest in the way we will develop our mining resources because I hope the world will move towards a system of a more circular economy where resources are tapped and that we are not just developing a throw away society. Particularly with the increased demand for many rare earth metals, we cannot afford to continue the form of mining that has been historic, which is exploitative and reflects a throw away culture that does not care about the environment, the life cycle, recycling and the precious nature of some of the resources.

I would like to see in the Bill - whether there will be any encouragement for this as we delve into it on Committee Stage - a move towards going back on some of those old tailing ponds and looking at our entire system to see if we can start recovering materials, reducing the wasteful use of materials and promote the recycling of materials in order that we do not have to be so reliant on a constant trail of exploitative mining resources. I do not know if we will have access to some of the expertise of the geologists the Department in terms of what the possibilities might be in that regard. It would be interesting to see if we could stitch such circular economy thinking into the Bill as it moves through Committee and Report Stages, even at this late stage 11 years on since its inception. The world is changing. The understanding of the value particularly of some of those rarer metals is changing and perhaps we could return to our significant zinc deposits and other resources that we have not historically considered as valuable resources for use in our modern economy.

I note the comments of other Deputies. Our activity is not huge. We have very large mines, including some of the zinc mines in Navan, but when we look at the volume of the turnover at approximately €400 million a year in those valuable resources the share accruing to the State in terms of royalties seems disproportionately small. That is another question we might have time to consider on Report Stage in terms of teasing out whether we are getting best value for money or providing too much incentive for development companies, despite the fact that the level of recovery seems to be low. Historically, we have had significant mining industries here, including in Roscommon, Sligo and a range of locations in west Cork, the copper mines and so on. It is not as if we do not have a geology that has provided rich mining deposits in the past. When we look at some of the figures I have a slight concern that the State could be looking to get a greater return from our resources.

Those are the details. We agree with the broad thrust of the Bill and we will be supporting it. I hope we might be able to tease out points I mentioned on Committee Stage but I very much welcome the arrival of the Bill in the Dáil. I commend the officials for getting it here and look forward to discussions with the Minister as we put it through its various Stages.

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