Rabbitte agrees to review oil and gas exploration tax

Ireland’s financial gain from private offshore oil and gas exploration is to be reviewed amid pressure to increase the tax take from firms profiting from the country’s natural resources.

However, Energy Minister Pat Rabbitte played down any major hike in Ireland’s tax charges on private companies involved in exploration, saying the extent of our natural resource finds were overshadowed compared with finds in other European states.

Mr Rabbitte was responding to an Oireachtas committee report on oil and gas exploration, which called for tax charges on companies to be hiked up to as much as 80% for significant finds.