Dáil Éireann debate -
Thursday, 23 Nov 2000

Vol. 526 No. 5

Written Answers. - Prospecting Licences.

Pat Rabbitte

Question:

25 Mr. Rabbitte asked the Minister for the Marine and Natural Resources the number of licences issued to prospectors for various minerals over the past three years; if any positive report has been made to his Department; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [26416/00]

Minister for the Marine and Natural Resources (Mr. Fahey)

Under the terms of the Minerals Development Acts, 1940 to 1999 I lay my report every six months before the Houses of the Oireachtas on transactions under the Acts. Those reports are in the Library of the Houses. From those reports you will see details of prospecting licences held and by whom. In the past three years the numbers of prospecting licences held at the end of each reporting period was as follows:

Year	30 June	31 December
1997	419	401
1998	399	397
1999	452	463

My most recent report for the six months to 30 June 2000 showed 486 extant licences. In the context of a major cut back on world wide minerals exploration expenditure in the last three years it is an achievement for Ireland to have maintained its attraction for exploration in terms of expenditure and increased the area under exploration.

Under the terms of a prospecting licence the holder is required to report for every two year period on his activities under the licence and to satisfy me that he has carried out the programme of works which I had accepted from him as a condition of the licence. The continued interest in holding licences is an indication of the value of Ireland as a prospecting territory. I am pleased to say that several new areas of base metal mineralisation have been discovered in the past three years.

Commerciality of any find is a matter for the business decision of the intending developer. It is evidenced to me by an application for a State mining facility which I would scrutinise in detail in parallel with the necessary applications for planning permission to the relevant local authority and for integrated pollution control licence to the Environmental Protection Agency. All three applications require the publication for public scrutiny of an environmental impact statement.

There are currently 15 State mining facilities of which 11 are in production. Operations at Tara, Galmoy and Lisheen brought Ireland to eighth in the world for mine production of zinc at the end of 1999. When Lisheen reaches full production it is expected that Ireland will rank sixth in the world. The major gypsum opencast mine at Knocknacran, County Monaghan, provides all the raw material to the nearby plaster and board mills in Kingscourt and has provided raw material for cement manufacture to each of the manufacturing plants on this island.