Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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290. To ask the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources the extent to which oil, gas or other exploration licences issued in the past 15 years have been activated or are in process thereof; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [11051/15]

Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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292. To ask the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources the extent of any gold, silver, oil, gas or other minerals discovered on-shore or off-shore on foot of licences offered or issued over the past ten years; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [11053/15]

Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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293. To ask the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources the uptake of exploration licences in each year from 2007 to date; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [11054/15]

Joe McHugh (Donegal North East, Fine Gael)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 290, 292 and 293 together.

Details of all authorisations granted by the Department are published in the six monthly reports to the Oireachtas, which I am obliged to lay before the Houses under the Minerals Development Acts, 1940 to 1999 and the Petroleum and Other Minerals Development Act, 1960, respectively. The last such reports were in respect of the period ending 31 December, 2014. These details and reports are also available on my Department’s website at . All authorisations for oil and gas exploration issued by my Department are granted subject to the carrying out of a work programme agreed with the Department. The delivery of such work programmes is monitored by the Department during the course of the authorisation.

While there have been no commercial discoveries of oil or gas within the territory of the State in the last fifteen years there has been a positive upswing in the level of petroleum exploration activity in recent years, in particular acquisition of new seismic data. We need to see this translate into an increased level of exploration drilling in the coming years, if Ireland’s true petroleum potential is to be realised.

In a similar manner, while the number of active minerals prospecting licences indicate the buoyant state of mineral exploration in Ireland, no new commercially viable deposits of minerals have been discovered in the last fifteen years, although there have been some encouraging results, particularly in Counties Limerick and Clare. It is too early to determine however whether these results will lead to identification of commercially viable deposits.