Firms ‘waiting’ to exploit oil find off Connemara, says TD

The Government will decision on the tax regime for oil exploration next year and has admitted that 16,500 barrels of oil were removed off the Connemara coast in 1997.

Independent TD Richard Boyd Barrett yesterday held up a small container of crude oil in the Dáil which he claimed was from the find.

Junior energy minister Fergus O’Dowd admitted a tanker called the Berge Hugin took the oil away but that Statoil ultimately decided the field was not commercially viable.