On the 26th of March 2010, the Fianna Fail / Green governing coalition announced that they were inviting applications for ‘Onshore Licensing Options over the Northwest Carboniferous Basin and the Clare Basin.’ The senior minister in the department at the time was Green Party TD, Eamon Ryan. Conor Lenihan (Fianna Fail) was the department’s junior minister. On the day this invitation to the oil and gas industry was announced Conor Lenihan stated that “over recent months there has been renewed interest in targeting the natural gas resource potential of the two basins, which had been identified in earlier exploration. Finding and producing our indigenous natural gas resources is critical to enhancing Ireland’s security of energy supply and reducing our reliance on imported fuels”. A similar licensing process had been underway in the UK from 2007 onwards. The process there has been sped up by the Cameron government over the last two years and at this point in time, pending the outcome of an Environmental Assessment report commissioned by the UK Government from a fracking related engineering firm - AMEC, 60% of the land mass of the UK may soon be licensed for exploration. Campaigners, established environmental groups such as Greenpeace, and the Guardian Newspaper have made clear over the past 12 months that the present UK government is thoroughly penetrated by a network of advisors, led by Lord Browne, with substantial financial interests in the nascent Fracking industry. It is thus highly likely that massive areas of the UK will be added to those already licensed in the very near future, leading to an intensification of the ongoing and increasingly public conflict between communities and the fracking industry. This conflict has become highly visible over the past year at test well locations at Balcombe outside London and Barton-Moss outside Manchester.
Posted on: Thu, 10 Apr 2014 09:52:24 +0000