Thomas Byrne (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I wish to make a few points in response to what the Minister said. He read from Article 10.1 of the Constitution and implied that water was already protected in the Constitution when he stated: "All natural resources, including the air and all forms of potential energy ... belong to the State," but he stopped reading at that point. What he did not say was the phrase, also in the same article, "subject to all estates and interests therein for the time being lawfully vested in any person or body". Article 10.3 states: "Provision may be made by law for the management of the property which belongs to the State by virtue of this Article and for the control of the alienation, whether temporary or permanent, of that property." The Constitution clearly envisages that the State has the power to alienate and to sell the natural resources, and that has happened. If that article were taken to mean what the Minister has interpreted it to mean, wind farms would not be allowed to operate, the Tara Mines would be in State control, and so on.