Thomas Pringle (Donegal, Independent) | Oireachtas source

Kinsale Energy Limited published a report on the decommissioning of gas fields and facilities project more than two and a half years ago, on 12 June 2018. At that time Kinsale Energy was preparing for the decommissioning of the fields and facilities, which were coming to the end of their productive life having been in production since 1978. It is a very useful and interesting report.

The motion before us refers only to the Dumping at Sea Act 1996 but there are many other connected items of legislation, regulations and licensing terms. The licensing terms of 1992 state, with regard to decommissioning, that the Minister should be given at least one year’s notice and that the Minister must be sent an abandonment plan in writing, which must contain information about abandonment and removal of facilities. Is it right to think that the Minister's Department has had the decommissioning plan since mid-2018 but that this motion is now urgent because the Environmental Protection Agency is about to receive an application to dump at sea by the Kinsale group?

My take on the matter, following a short online briefing earlier this week, is that it has already been decided that the Environmental Protection Agency will approve the application. Obviously, this matter has come before the House today because it needs to be considered as an option for the EPA to grant a licence. God forbid, we could not expect it to remove the stuff it put in there and made money out of in recent years.

The dumping at sea application relates just to the pipelines and so-called "umbilicals" of the gas fields. The wells are being plugged and abandoned and the platforms are being entirely removed. However, the legs of the platforms will be cut at the seabed. We were told that there would be no trace of the platforms. The evidence that the gas fields were there will be in the seabed. However, not all the pipeline is buried. At the briefing this week, we were informed that the pipeline is only partly buried. About 13 km of pipeline is buried, 3.5 km is covered by rock, 3 km is free-spanning above seabed, and 35 km to 36 km is currently exposed. Apparently without this function the only option is to remove all the infrastructure in place. What is wrong with that?

As outlined by previous speakers, Ireland currently holds the chair of the OSPAR Commission. The OSPAR Convention of 1992 is the legislative framework for international co-operation on environmental protection of the north-east Atlantic. Decision 98/3, paragraph 2, relates to the dumping and leaving wholly or partly in place of disused offshore installations. It states that it is prohibited within the OSPAR maritime area. However, Ireland as chair of the OSPAR Commission is going to actually approve this. It makes sense that the Government is siding with corporations and making life easier for them, rather than adhering to the principles of international conventions.

I am sure Kinsale Energy Limited will make the application to the EPA and it will be approved because that is the only reason for dealing with this motion today. I believe the legislation was passed in the 1990s and this part of the legislation was never commenced. It was never an issue because the Kinsale field was not going to be decommissioned at that stage, so it would continue to wait to happen. We have reached the stage where it must happen to allow the EPA to grant this facility.

I have been looking at how our Governments do not seem to enact any legislation and then it all becomes a big rush. The Government does not seem to be aware of some aspects of legislation that it should be interested in. I am particularly thinking of the licensing of UK fishing vessels where the Department did not even know anything about it, and it was up to the vessel owners to highlight the issue. For 20 years this legislation has been sat upon and nothing was done and nothing happened. Now it is coming through as a rush job. One positive aspect is that it signals to us that something out of the ordinary is happening where Kinsale Energy Limited is going to lead the process for decommissioning and not the other way around.

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