Tony McLoughlin (Sligo-North Leitrim, Fine Gael)
Link to this: Individually | In context

Question 328: To ask the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources his views on the fact that the legal ownership rights to 27,000 square miles of oil and gas were sold in 1958 for €500 by the then Minister for Industry and Commerce and that this legal arrangement still stands resulting in any potential gas or oil extraction being of little impact to the taxpayer. [35892/11]

Pat Rabbitte (Dublin South West, Labour)
Link to this: Individually | In context

The Agreement of 13 January, 1959 between the Minister for Industry and Commerce and Ambassador Irish Oil Ltd gave that company an Exploration Licence for 20 years from 29 March 1960. The area licensed to the company was the whole onshore area of the Republic of Ireland and any seas under Irish jurisdiction, subject to the surrender of 25% of the original area every five years. The extensive exploration rights conferred by that agreement have long since expired, with the only areas remaining under licence being the producing fields in the Kinsale area.

As can be seen from the acreage update reports regularly published on my Department's website, while a broad range of companies currently hold exploration authorisations in the Irish offshore and onshore, the majority of the area in fact remains unlicensed to any exploration company. In the event that commercial discoveries are made in the future by the exploration companies that now hold licences, or by companies that are granted licences in the future, then the tax provisions in the Finance Acts relating to petroleum production would apply resulting in a tax take of between 25% and 40%.