State will not benefit enough from oil, gas finds

Re Matt Cooper’s article (Sept 4) on oil and gas in Ireland disregarded the facts: there is no State ownership or State participation in oil and gas resources in Ireland — the commodity can and will be sold by the licence holders to whomever they wish and at market price.

There is no legal facility to ringfence oil and gas for the Irish market. All development and exploration costs can be set off against tax liabilities for a long time to come.

Even the three Corrib partners have no knowledge of the sales agreements of each party, as each partner has to sell separately. Therefore, there can’t be any prediction by Matt Cooper or anybody else of how much of Corrib gas will be sold in Ireland.