Dominic Hannigan (Meath East, Labour)
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To ask the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources if there are any plans to increase the amount of taxation on oil companies profits in Ireland considering the advanced technology that enables said companies to retrieve oil more easily from the Irish coast; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [53572/12]

Fergus O'Dowd (Louth, Fine Gael)
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Incremental advances in technologies of relevance to the international oil and gas exploration industry will not in general confer any greater advantage on Ireland relative to other countries with whom Ireland competes to attract mobile international exploration investment. Notwithstanding some positive recent indications, it is worth recalling that the Corrib gas field, which was discovered in 1996, was the last discovery in the Irish offshore to be declared a commercial discovery. The only producing gas fields in the Irish offshore are those in the Kinsale area and no oil has been produced to date.

The fiscal terms, which were last revised in 2007, seek to reflect the reality of Ireland’s exploration experience and seek to strike a balance between maximising the financial return to the State and the need to set the terms at a level that will encourage a greater share of mobile international exploration investment to the Irish offshore. Without a substantial increase in the level of drilling activity in the Irish offshore, from the current level of about one well per year, the true potential of our natural resources will not to be proven.

Ireland’s fiscal terms are set at a level similar to countries such as France, Portugal and Spain, who, like Ireland, have limited petroleum production and with whom we compete for investment, rather than at a level comparable to countries such as the UK and Norway who are major petroleum producers.