Denis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent) | Oireachtas source

There is one in Galway too. The Department is facilitating the encoding of large public sector customer databases in encouraging the use of Eircode. Since the launch of Eircode approximately 12 months ago, more than 3 million items of correspondence have issued from public sector bodies that included the use of Eircodes. A significant number of commercial bodies have incorporated Eircode into their online services and this is growing all the time. Eircode is currently in the process of being incorporated into navigation systems and, as Members know, has already been incorporated into the national ambulance service deployment system. I see significant value in this project which will take time to become fully embedded in our society and as part of our national infrastructure.

The natural resources area encompasses mineral and hydrocarbon exploration and extraction, the Geological Survey of Ireland and Inland Fisheries. The sector employs 30,000 people and contributes 3% of our GNP in combined value in excess of €4 billion. In recent years, the Department has taken a number of regulatory and technical initiatives to attract a higher share of mobile international exploration investment to Ireland. The culmination of this has been the success of the Atlantic margin licensing round in 2015, which resulted in a total of 43 applications for licensing options. Some 28 new licensing options have been awarded as part of this process following the assessment by my Department.

On the mining side, Ireland is a significant source of zinc and lead with one of Europe's largest zinc mines in Navan. We are consolidating the legislation in this area and the new Minerals Development Bill 2015 was considered earlier this year by the Seanad.

The Department, working with Inland Fisheries Ireland, is also responsible for conservation management and regulation of the inland fishery resource and arbitrating between competing interests for limited and finite stocks which, in many instances, are either at or below conservation limits. The Geological Survey of Ireland supports the geoscience sector by providing data and objective geological advice and information crucial to the sustainable economic development of our natural resources. It also manages major data acquisition initiatives, such as INFOMAR, the seabed mapping programme jointly with the Marine Institute based in Galway, and the Tellus project. INFOMAR which has completed the mapping of Ireland's deeper waters is now assisting in the updating of charts for marine safety and providing baseline data for ocean energy, environment protection, fisheries and research.

The Tellus project is an initiative to carry out state of the art mapping using airborne remote sensing and ground based sampling. That is in Connemara, County Galway, at the moment and will then move to east Galway. The objective there is to complete a baseline of all island environmental and geological datasets. Both of these projects are funded by my Department. Each of them has attracted approximately €3 million in funding per annum in the past number of years.

I hope I have given Members a good overview of the broad range of activities in my Department and what we are responsible for overseeing at present. Hopefully, later this month, we will take over the environmental portfolio from the Minister for housing, planning and local government, Deputy Coveney. There are many other programmes across the individual sectors but time does not allow me to go through them. However, I am happy to answer any questions that Members may have.