"Green" policies are destroying this country

Well, you do know that there's a hefty annual charge on each lease payable to Minister Ryan? And there's not a lot of point hanging on to lesser prospects when it's clear there's no chance Ryan is going to let them progress. His latest decision is quite clearly naked politicking. He commissioned an external report -- obviously to cover his own ass -- which landed on his desk last June, waited until November to deliver a 3-week ultimatum for Barryroe to come up with cash (which they did) and then delayed another half year before issuing this refusal. Larry Goodman's money wasn't even in the offing when his report was commissioned, so it's hard to see how it could have been factored in.

Ryan relied on a non-binding clause dating from 2019 in DECC's financial guidelines suggesting that a company needs to hold 3.5 times as much in tangible assets as the cost of any work program under an exploration license or petroleum lease. As Barryroe's stock broker pointed out, this stricture has never been a thing before and no small explorer has ever met it, nor ever could.

Yes, of course Ryan is going to get sued. Lansdowne who are non-Irish will sue him under the ECT. Barryroe will take him to court domestically. They've spent 200 million on offshore exploration and the Barryroe field potentially holds several billion dollars worth of oil and gas. Investors in Barryroe include a pension fund and some very high net worth individuals who have been anticipating a return for more than a decade. They're hardly going to curl up and die when Ryan suggests on a whim -- as he did today -- that they should switch to building wind turbines instead.

Ryan appeared on The Last Word with Matt Cooper today, May 23rd. You can find it on Today FM's website. (Yes, I do spend quite a bit of time listening to what the Green Party has to say, if only to remind myself how dangerous and viciously evil they are). The segment on Barryroe is part of an hour long "climate emergency special". In fairness Cooper tackles Ryan on items like "Why are Residential Electricity Prices up 51% When Wholesale Prices are Down 40%" (to which Ryan's bungling non-answer is -- obviously -- more windmills please). Since I don't want to make anyone's ears bleed by having to listen to this moron for an hour, including all his favourite climate and energy fabrications, here's a transcript of the Barryroe piece. And yes, I've carefully proof-read it ... if it sounds incoherent it's because Ryan the dribbling idiot has never been capable of string two sentences together:

... he then leads off on his next scatty ramble. Even while he's trying to gaslight us that his decision was the result of rigorous assessment, he simply can't help letting drop almost religious tidbits about how explorers should hammer their oil derricks into wind turbines. He honestly seems to be quite oblivious to the fact that it's not about his personal whim -- that he can't rewrite legal agreements just because his socialist face doesn't like the look of a capitalist company's jib. See you in court, Eamo.

As you know, that clock winds far to slowly to save Ryan from getting his ass whupped:

And since Lansdowne is a UK company the 20 year sunset clause cannot be avoided by any coordinated action on intra-EU disputes. Though I can't really see long drawn out ECT arbitration being needed. Ryan's purported reason for turning down a petroleum lease undertaking is so transparently motivated by ideology that a domestic court is likely to laugh in his face. He was already warned in the Dail that he was "exposing the State to a potential massive legal claim for interfering with the company’s legitimate property rights".

However much Ryan likes to pretend -- as he did in the Cooper interview above, has prevously done with in a Seanad debate, and as you yourself have parotted on this thread in eerily similar language for a non-Green -- that "we have never found oil in commercial quantities", Barryroe has already successfully appraised the field back in 2011/12 and has independently auditing assessments of hydrocarbon volumes. Even if Barryroe recovered its investments to date -- let alone profits foregone on the Barryroe field -- it would be worth ten times its current share price. That gives investors an awful lot of incentive to litigate.

Public losses will be coming out of your pocket not mine (I don't pay any tax), so I guess that's up to you.

... and by the same token increase the damages for which the State may be liable.

How do you expect large private consortia to be enthusiastic to bid to provide your wind and ocean energy infrastructure at the required scale, if the nation States that are contracting it are going to back out of the treaty that protects their interest in it over the longer term?

Hardly sound conditions for multi-billion euro private investment.

Definitely good news. Sense prevails.

The first time I did Dublin to Shannon I took one look at what taking PT would involve and immediately decided I would fly in via London. Had Dublin-Shannon still had flights taking them would be a no-brainer for me, at least for the return trip.

Took PT subsequent trips and the crazy thing was the disproportionate amount of time getting the relatively short distance between Shannon and Colbert was. Frustrating it is that last little bit of missing joined-up thinking that makes people resort to driving.

@Red Silurian

That's why it smells strongly of virtue-signalling.

Eamon Ryan proves he’s no friend of the West

infrastructure that's desperately needed as there's nothing else forthcoming.

That thought crossed my mind too yes

It may not be positive long term, if you happen to live in some of the dark blue areas on this map. Flooding wide tracks of land leads to a rising water table in these areas and water will find its own level via underground streams. Many buildings have been constructed and fields claimed since the drainage schemes started hundreds of years ago, especially since the foundation of the state, some people will be impacted by this, it will take time to become apparent. Look on the bright side, more habitat available for Mosquitos and midges.

Speaking of trade-offs, the decline in the curlew population, they don't like nesting near wind turbines, guess where wind turbines are sited. At present I can hear the cuckoo in the evenings, I have not heard the distinctive curlew call for many years