Kathleen Lynch (Cork North Central, Labour)
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Question 112: To ask the Minister for Communications, Marine and Natural Resources the status of NORA; the timeframe for the establishment of the agency; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [27889/05]

Noel Dempsey (Meath, Fianna Fail)
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Prior to 1995 the oil companies in Ireland were obliged to meet a substantial portion of Ireland's oil stockholding obligations. This system proved unsatisfactory however, and under the European Communities (Minimum Stocks of Petroleum Oils) Regulations 1995, responsibility for the maintenance of strategic oil stockholding was removed from the industry and vested in a new State body, the National Oil Reserves Agency, NORA, which, for pragmatic reasons, was set up as a subsidiary of the Irish National Petroleum Corporation, INPC. NORA acts as the agent of the Minister with the function to arrange for the holding of strategic oil stocks at a level determined annually. Such stocks may be held directly by the agency itself or on its behalf by third parties at home and-or abroad.

Following a thoroughgoing review of the functions of NORA by my Department, it was determined that NORA should be established on a statutory basis as a stand-alone State body under the aegis of the Department of Communications, Marine and Natural Resources. On 21 July 2004, the Government approved the drafting of the National Oil Reserves Agency Bill. Following work by my Department and its legal advisers, and liaison with the Office of the Parliamentary Counsel, the Office of the Parliamentary Counsel has recently furnished a draft text of the Bill to my Department. It is anticipated that the Bill will be settled and published by the end of the year.