Madam, - The Irish State and the citizens of this country ought to be grateful to the Rossport Five - Michael O'Seighlin, Willie Corduff, Phillip McGrath, Vincent McGrath and Brendan Philbin - for highlighting the sell-out of our national resources.
The old geography textbook used to tell us that Ireland did not have any national resources. We now know this to be untrue, especially with regard to our offshore reserves of national gas and oil.
In 1975 the then Minister for Industry and Commerce, Justice Keating, introduced exploration terms which included a tax rate of 50 per cent on profits; an automatic 50 per cent stake for the state in any commercial wells and royalties of 6 per cent. However, in 1987 a major change occurred when Ray Burke became Minister for Energy.
He abolished the requirement that the State have a 50 per cent stake in any commercial project and that royalties be received. He also introduced a facility whereby exploration expenses could be written off against tax.
Even more concessions were granted to multinationals in 1992 when the Minister for Finance reduced the corporation tax rate on oil and gas production to 25 per cent, the lowest in the world. The companies were also allowed to write off all costs going back for 25 years.
All this shows that our rich national resources were sold off for virtually nothing by the politicians we elected to look after them. This reminds me of the days of Davitt and Parnell when the small farmers were urged to "hold a firm grip of your homestead and land. You must not allow yourselves to be dispossessed as you were. . .in 1847".
Thanks again to the Rossport Five for highlighting the "rip-off" of our national resources. - Yours, etc,
PAT CAHILL, Past President ASTI, Whitehall Road,Terenure, Dublin 12.