I should like to make a number of comments on the Bill and, in particular, on the Minister's speech which, in some respects, ranged wider over the issue than the actual contents of the Bill. We should bear in mind the kind of publicity that has emerged in the debate in the other House with regard to the spirited and very dynamic opposition of the Fianna Fáil Party and, in particular, of their spokesman on Industry and Commerce. It comes very ill from that party which devoted so much parliamentary time three years ago, in the defence of private capital interests here, to adopt the line they are now adopting with regard to this Bill. Their opposition, at best, can be seen as being totally opportunistic and nonconstructive both with regard to the workings of the development of our natural resources and to the interests which it would appear they represent from time to time. I refer specifically to private business interests. That party has more coherently defended the interests of private companies in the past. Their attitude, and the attitude Senator Ryan adopted today, indicated a very clever argument of the minutiae of this Bill and cleverly avoided the implications of what they were saying.
We had that from a party that had been in power for more than 30 years and left us in the situation in 1973 that only 40 per cent of our mineral rights only were owned by the State, that another 25 per cent were in possible ownership and that 35 per cent were privately owned. This was the situation which was inherited then and one which was upheld, presumably, by the 1936 Constitution. That is more evidence which suggests that that Constitution badly needs to be scrapped and replaced with one that represents Ireland's needs and interests in this age. That is the first point.
The arguments made elsewhere and to an extent made today are arguments which do not give any real substance of criticism to this Bill and should be seen as such. The precise situation the Minister for Industry and Commerce inherited with regard to the Tara and Bula mines was an extraordinary complicated and messy one, and the Minister in his opening speech adequately described that. It comes extraordinarily ill now from the opponents of this Bill to be criticising someone who has to all intents and purposes extracted the best possible deal from a mess which was largely of their own creation. It is ironic that the memory of people in this House is so short that they seem to forget that situation.
It is fortunate that Senator Lenihan is not here today to argue against the Bill and to argue against an increase in the State's take of our natural resources, because I have a distinct recollection of seeing him in a photograph taken outside Kildare Street leading miners from the Tynagh mines who were objecting to a small increase, comparatively speaking, in the taxation of our mineral resources. I am annoyed that Fianna Fáil should appear to adopt a position of constructive opposition when, in fact, their attitude today and in the other House to this measure is both opportunistic and very destructive. In addition, I find this attitude totally contradictory, because what is at base in this Bill and what I consider to be the core of it is not so much the acquisition of this body of shares in the form proposed and under the agreement referred to but whether the Government, composed of Fine Gael and Labour, can propose to develop our natural resources in some form of positive and trusted partnership with other parties, private individuals in the State or foreign concerns.
Fianna Fáil have displayed a concern for private company interests in a real sense and for private individual interests in a substantial sense when they opposed bitterly the capital taxation programme introduced by the Government more than two years ago. They now appear to be attacking the interests they sought to defend two or three years ago in demanding that the agreements between the State and the private sector in this instance be subject not to scrutiny but hauled and dragged before the full debate of this Chamber in a way that would inhibit and prevent any private investor or private company from attempting to participate in a deal or partnership with the Government. I find Fianna Fáil's concern with the private company and private interests, as expressed in the past, to be totally at variance with their insistence that this kind of deal should be made public in this and the other House of the Oireachtas.
It is all the more contradictory and opportunistic when one considers that the numerous deals of State involvement through the IDA and Government support of one kind or another with private companies, foreign and Irish owned, were never made public when Fianna Fáil were in Government. What is before us is a very cynical type of opposition by Fianna Fáil, and it should be seen as such. They have contributed nothing but very minute and skilfully argued legal points in the debate in the other House and, indeed, a very professional, financial, legal contribution offered by Senator Ryan today. They did not tell us on any occasion or in any way how the benefits of those resources could be translated into positive benefits for our people. To that extent they are failing totally in their role as an Opposition, just as they failed in their role as a Government when in office. One needs to clarify the position with regard to the contribution of Fianna Fáil in this regard.
I want now to talk about a matter the Minister raised in his opening speech, the question of our relationship with the multi-nationals and the position of the State with regard to the development of our natural resources. He was correct in using the Bula and Tara mines position to set up some kind of framework and climate to encourage foreign interest to prospect for substantial deposits which we are given to understand may exist off our Continental Shelf. He was right to encourage foreign interests to explore for that kind of mineral resource. No contrary arguments has satisfied me that the State should undertake that exploration. I read with interest most of the publications issued by those responsible for the resources protection campaign, a group who have done an extraordinary good job in raising the consciousness of our people to the potential value of natural resources and to develop our awareness of how significant those resources could be in our economy. Their detailed criticism of participation or involvement at the exploration stage for mineral resources, particularly with regard to offshore mineral resources, are not substantial enough to allow me to be swayed by them.
The issue of confidentiality was raised during the debate in the Dáil. On this whole question of setting up a positive framework in which companies will be prepared to sink millions of pounds, in some cases into dry holes, off the west coast looking for oil we have to realise that if we get that climate wrong and do not give the kind of encouragement needed—we are certainly not going to have the political courage or will in this House or indeed in the other House to finance the exploration ourselves, offset against the very pressing social needs we have—we will lose ourselves in the sort of sidetrack argument Senator Ryan displayed today and Deputy O'Malley displayed in the other House with consummate skill.
I should like to take issue with the Minister in one regard, where he was talking about partnership in general and the role of the State. I accept that in the initial stages the State does not have the expertise to develop our natural resources automatically; we do not have it within our direct experience. But, by the same argument, neither did we have it with regard to the setting up of Aer Lingus, Bord na Móna or any State company. By the same argument, neither does Bula have that expertise.
However, it is difficult to argue about a rational policy for the exploration and development of natural resources on the Bula case because of the legal mess inherited by the Government and the necessity to establish a climate at a time when the prospecting licences had to be drafted. Taking the Minister's lead in his speech, his statement to the effect that he was not much in favour of a State company is one I would not agree with, if I interpret him correctly. I would like him to see the development over a short period of time of a State mineral corporation. As soon as we can acquire the expertise, either by direct experience from minority partnerships in such companies as Bula or Tara, I think the objective of the Government should be a State mineral corporation.
The Labour Party would be in favour of such a development. Unfortunately for us—and Labour Party members frequently have to be reminded of the fact—we do not have a Labour Government, we have a Coalition Government. As a member of a political party, many of the things you would like to have you cannot have. However, you can have a lot of what you would like. With regard to natural resources, I think the increase in the State take from under 10 per cent up to just 70 per cent is going very rapidly along the road to getting most of what I would want. We are not the only party without a full share of government. Helmut Schmidt in Germany does not have a Social Democratic federal Government; he has a coalition Government. So on throughout the west of Europe. The arguments thrown frequently at people like myself and others are that this is not Labour Party policy or is falling short of Labour Party policy. These arguments are made by people who fail to realise that we do not have a Labour Government and that we are attempting to get what we can. What the Minister has correctly gone for is the maximum available take, given the constraints both politically and financially. To that extent I support the Minister and I think in this instance he has done a very good job. What I would not like to see—and I would like him to clarify it in his reply—is the ruling out that our take would end at 70 per cent for all time, because the demands that the growth of the Irish population will make over the next ten to 15 years, as I have said before in debates in this House, will be so enormous that we will need every penny we can get.
On Committee Stage we will have time to look at some of the details of the various provisions and to hear the Minister expand his own views with regard to the necessity for confidentiality on this agreement. His views, having been expressed elsewhere, presumably remain constant so one can comment on them to that extent now. I would like him in his reply to address himself to this question of whether he feels, if this measure is enacted and if the company can start production quickly, that the benefit of between £25 million and £30 million he was talking about can be realised within the foreseeable future and if he would care to put a date on that foreseeable future. Certainly at the end of the day that is what all of us are really interested in—just what the take is going to be and how soon we can get it. Because the Minister has indicated a certain sense of urgency about this whole measure, I would ask him to point out just what the delivery date is, because this would make sense of that urgency.
In his opening speech the Minister made very deliberate reference to the whole framework of exploration for natural resources in our society. I would like him to say how he feels now about the prospects for exploration as a result of this measure coming into law and how critical the passing of this measure would be. We are being asked to take something on faith —there is no doubt about that. That is not without precedent. While taking the Bill on faith will not necessarily be any more difficult, it certainly would be much easier if we could get the Minister's assessment and assurances in regard to those aspects on which I have asked questions.
I am seeking, in effect, to get some kind of indication or assurance, without wishing in any way to breach the confidentiality of the agreement about the development by Bula of this resource and the manner in which it will be developed. I am also seeking assurances about the relationship of the Oireachtas to a company in which the Minister will be a 49 per cent shareholder.
I will start with the agreement and its reference to planning permission in some shape or form. On the basis of the figures given to us and the extraction rate proposed in the Minister's speech this resource will last for something in the region of 15 to 20 years— a very short time in environment terms. As an architect planner and someone who has a professional understanding of the environment, I am very anxious about how it is mined from an open-cast point of view. The way in which it is maintained during that process is very important. Otherwise, the amount of local blight that could be generated in a particularly dry summer, such as the one we had last year, could cause problems for the surrounding countryside. These are potential problems. Assurances would need to be sought by the State and by the Minister as a major shareholder in this company, irrespective of whatever considerations the local authority may seek to impose on it as a responsible developer of a natural resource.,
We cannot, in this case, use the practices that were used by opencast private mineral owners both in Europe and North America—I am thinking in particular of West Virginia where the devastation caused by open-cast mining on the environment was pretty savage in some areas. These are considerations which are legitimate and to which some attention would need to be paid at an early stage. The cost—conservation does cost money— would have to be properly assessed and allocated in a way that would not penalise the taxpayer or our take of the value of the resource. The value of the resource must be a gross value which will include the proper restoration of the countryside and not have it taken off our 70 per cent as a sort of additional charge after the ore has been extracted. I make that comment at this stage because one cannot refer specifically to that kind of point on Committee Stage.
The question of planning permission is a critical one. It is critical in regard to that alone and in regard to the diversion of the Blackwater. The resource of natural water fishing which we have, and the Blackwater is prominent in that, is similarly something that is increasingly an extremely scarce and finite resource whose life is much longer than the 20 years of the orebody, but whose value, obviously, is not anything like it. Value in finite resources is something that alters dramatically and quickly. Who can say that in 15 to 20 or 40 years' time a non-polluted and clear Blackwater could not be an extraordinarily fine resource in a highly urbanised part of Western Europe? The value and the restoration and the conservation of these resources must be built in at the beginning of the costings and not taken off the top, as is frequently done by private developers and private speculators. In other words, the community is penalised rather than compensated for this interference with the environment.
I am not sanctimonious about the environment, nor am I frightened by it. I believe that the environment is there to be exploited positively and rationally by mankind for the enrichment of humanity. I think we can do it in an intelligent and scientific way rather than simply ravaging it. We have enough knowledge now of the biological systems that go to make up the complex national environment to enable us to do it without doing the sort of damage that we do. I am very anxious that the Irish taxpayer does not have to pay for it. That is simply my point and I would trust that it is well and truly sewn into the relative sections of both the agreements and the policy, not just of Bula but indeed of Tara Mines as well.
The second point,—and I wish to conclude on this as I know there are other speakers—is the question of the smelter and Bula's commitment to making mineral ores available to the smelter. There is a lot of concerned contribution to the debate on natural resources in this country and there is a lot of ill-informed comment on natural resources. I do not profess to be an expert on natural resources or, indeed, on their potential, but one does not have to be an expert to realise that the multiplier effect of added value which the smelter would bring and which downstream industries could apply to the value of that £700 million orebody would be dramatic and very substantial. The real benefit of Bula will be multiplied in a geometric fashion if we can get the smelter.
A number of things become critical with the coming of a smelter into a country which has an orebody whose life expectancy is of that duration— the size of the smelter, the rate of extraction of the combined body. Certainly in both the agreements with Tara and with Bula the Government must have the right to review at a later stage, which I think is critical. I am very much against the idea of being locked into an agreement out of which we cannot come without very heavy penalties but we should be capable of being able to review rates of extraction and all of these things in order to maximise the benefit, depending on the fluctuation in the price of the asset and particularly in regard to setting up a smelter and the things related to it.
You cannot talk briefly about the Bula Bill in isolation because the measures are so minute and so particular. They generate so many implications and so many considerations that one's attitude to the Bill is coloured totally by one's attitude to the necessity to develop natural resources in our society. I found that the detailed legal opposition the Fianna Fáil Party put forward to this measure —and the skill with which they presented it—is remarkable, simply because they had failed in all of this to demonstrate how they would develop natural resources in our society. To that extent they, as a major party, are, in my view, indicted. I should like to hear the Fianna Fáil Party present their arguments as to how they developed our natural mineral resources in the past and how they would seek to have this done in the future.
The suggestion that the £9 million should be invested back into the company makes a lot of sense provided you do not actually own the rights to the mineral ore that lies below the body of the ground. If anybody can claim responsibility for allowing the state of affairs to exist in 1973 or in 1970 that only 40 per cent of the mineral resources in this country were actually owned by the people of Ireland, it is the Fianna Fáil Party that can claim credit for that fantastic piece of republican development. To that extent we simply cannot tear up a Constitution and deprive people of property rights which have been conferred upon them.
I should like the Minister to clarify the necessity for this kind of an agreement and say what he feels about the prospects for exploration of other mineral resources in our Continental Shelf and within our own physical land territory. I should like him to address himself to some of the points that have been raised with regard to the planning permission, the open-cast mining, the Blackwater diversion and the smelter.