Oil off the West coast

begsbyOnaTrain

A few years back, most of ye will remember that you couldn't walk down a main street in any town in Ireland without a stand present informing you that FF had given away "Ex00 billion" of oil off the west coast. The value of x would vary by a considerable amount. Placards with the same message were at every protest worth its salt.

No Saturday was complete in the west of Ireland without dragging your Aldi shopping home while getting shouted at by some Dublin crusty about "our" oil.

We were told that this oil would easily pay the country's debts and be used to transform the nation into a socialist utopia, except for those evil oil companies and their buddies in <parties_who_have_been_in_government> had conspired to get it all for themselves.

So here we are years later and it's never mentioned. What happened? Did the greedy companies do a Mr Burns and slant drill it from out underneath us, without the country noticing? Why no shouts for "Drill baby, drill"?

is_that_so

Aren't we about to end this? At least according to Leo.

What harm granting licences to oil behemoths in Irish waters, and getting tuppence back. Sure we wouldn't miss the odd billion or several. Cut to Ray Burke laughing from the pits of hell.

Tabnabs

So little oil even the experts can't find it. The cost of that one endeavour alone would have put serious strain on the state finances for those who advocate keeping the costs and rewards in-house.

https://www.radiokerry.ie/kerry-td-says-off-shore-drilling-oil-ceased-temporarily/

nthclare

It's plain to see our leader's seem to want to be the first to do everything.
It's their mantra, even their politically aligned manager's of quangos etc want to be the first to do whatever....

Sure as they say play stupid game's and you'll win stupid prizes...

Let's be the first country to ban oil exploration, I guarantee you if they discovered a huge well of oil they'ed be the first to take advantage of the lucrative black gold.

Oh the latest is gas is cleaner energy, so we'll hold on to the gas.

It'll all come around again, we're only at the beginning of combustion engine power....

If they could come up with an engine which could run as efficiently on one tenth of the amount of fuel we need today, therefore slowing down the consumption rather than a full stop...

topper75

is_that_so wrote: »

Aren't we about to end this? At least according to Leo.

I can't believe the irony of it coinciding with the day I announce that will no longer be making myself available for selection on the Irish rugby team.

ohnonotgmail

topper75 wrote: »

I can't believe the irony of it coinciding with the day I announce that will no longer be making myself available for selection on the Irish rugby team.

You were never the same after the injury. lost a yard of pace.

Roger Hassenforder

ohnonotgmail wrote: »

You were never the same after the injury. lost a yard of pace.

I heard it was repeatedly failing HIA protocols

Markcheese

topper75 wrote: »

I can't believe the irony of it coinciding with the day I announce that will no longer be making myself available for selection on the Irish rugby team.

There's currently at least one oil prospect off the south west coast (Barryroe), the owners are apparently trying to get funding to develop the field, I'm sure there are others... But in the short term they're worth nothing to ireland...
I don't have a major problem ethically with exploiting any oil found in irish water, (as I drive my diesel van, turn on the gas heating, and use gas fired electric lights), at the moment the Irish state gets effectively nothing from fossil fuel exploitation in our waters, so leave it there (maybe for later), and push towards other more indigenous forms of less polluting fuel...

expectationlost

the ban is only in the Atlantic closed area it seems https://www.irishtimes.com/business/markets/drilling-down-into-taoiseach-s-oil-exploration-pledge-1.4027935?mode=amp can't find a map for that does that mean the continental shelf or the area we control beyond the shelf that would be very difficult to drill in

topper75

Roger Hassenforder wrote: »

I heard it was repeatedly failing HIA protocols

Off pitch issues Roger. Brick walls. Repeated.

topper75

Markcheese wrote: »

There's currently at least one oil prospect off the south west coast (Barryroe), the owners are apparently trying to get funding to develop the field, I'm sure there are others... But in the short term they're worth nothing to ireland...
I don't have a major problem ethically with exploiting any oil found in irish water, (as I drive my diesel van, turn on the gas heating, and use gas fired electric lights), at the moment the Irish state gets effectively nothing from fossil fuel exploitation in our waters, so leave it there (maybe for later), and push towards other more indigenous forms of less polluting fuel...

Kind of besides the point I was making. Leo effectively announced that we will no longer do something that we literally had never actually done before anyway.
And people in the media, being in the... eh climate ... we are in, gave him kudos for it.

begsbyOnaTrain

Deleted User wrote: »

What harm granting licences to oil behemoths in Irish waters, and getting tuppence back.

Well... it's not as if there's any oil flowing now. Nobody's getting tuppence But RBB and leftie alphabet soup groups assured me that there's hundreds of billions worth of oil just out there.