asked the Minister for Industry and Commerce if any orders have been placed with Irish based firms for the building of platforms for oil exploration on this country's coast.

Drilling ships or mobile drilling rigs, and not platforms, are used in connection with offshore petroleum exploration. I presume, however, that the Deputy has in mind the building of platforms for use in the development of petroleum finds. The Kinsale Head gasfield is the only such development at present and some £12 million worth of orders for the construction of several component parts of the two production platforms needed have been placed with Irish firms.

Is the Minister aware that a firm set up in County Mayo that did quite an amount of preliminary work in anticipation of receiving orders for this kind of work have had to leave the country and take away their resources because they did not get any orders? Furthermore, does he see any future for firms of this kind or any hope that they might be in a position to get orders in future?

There are a number of points that arise out of this. First, there is a considerable world surplus of platforms at this time. Secondly, the programme of drilling is really only getting under way this year. Thirdly, the Kinsale development which I talked about and where there have been £12 million worth of orders was on head of the Marathon agreement which I inherited. Under that Marathon agreement the Minister has no right to require companies to place their contracts in Ireland. It has been possible nonetheless to get co-operation from the company. However, in this respect the Marathon agreement differs fundamentally from the 1975 licensing terms which include a provision that the licencee is to use Irish goods and services where possible. I think people would be imprudent to spend large sums of money until there are definite finds, but in the event of the finds being on a scale that many experts anticipate, there would certainly be a future for such work in Ireland.