Has the Minister any information as to whether it is intended that the INPC in operating Whitegate will be given power, if that can be done legally, to compel the oil companies here to take a certain proportion of the Whitegate product from them?

I think that will be included in the specific instances, in that the different companies trading in our State will utilise a certain amount of the product.

On the assumption that the Whitegate product will be more costly than imported products would the Minister agree that that arrangement will imply compelling the oil companies to take a certain proportion of their supplies from Whitegate at a higher price than they would be paying for products imported from elsewhere?

The Deputy's assumption may not be correct because one would have assumed then that with the closure of Whitegate there should have been a consequent reduction in the price of the products used by the different companies here. The closure of Whitegate did not bring any reduction in the price of petrol or oil, here, so it would be wrong to assume that when companies are utilising the Whitegate products it should bring an increase.

Accepting the force of the Minister's argument, I would like to know why the closure of Whitegate did not produce a fall in the cost of product to the consumer? The Minister is getting away from what I wanted to find out. Does he not acknowledge that an arrangement under which the oil companies operating in this State will be obliged to accept and pay for a proportion of the Whitegate output can be nothing but a compulsory arrangement, in other words, that the only way it can be done is by forcing them to do it, because everyone is agreed that the Whitegate product was and will continue to be substantially dearer than the imported product and that is admitting the relevance of the question which the Minister himself asked?

The words "substantially dearer" are rather wild.

Well, it will be at least a couple of pence a gallon at the consumer end.

There is that possibility.

This is the final supplementary.

Well, I will have to make it a long and complicated question if you are going to confine me like that. Would the Minister agree that, having regard to the fact that the INPC losses last year were only maintained at their level of £2 million by virtue of the fact that the ESB were compelled to absorb the real loss by taking from the INPC oil which the INPC had bought at a price much dearer than the going spot price, and that with that kind of record behind the INPC, it is all too likely that an arrangement of the kind I envisage will be what they will be looking for?

I would not like to comment on that, because the Deputy is envisaging a situation where the spot price of oil would always be lower than the price for which they would have entered into a contract and that situation might not always apply.

It might not but it has applied in the last couple of years. Would the Minister admit that the only reason the INPC's shown losses are as little as £2 million is that during that period they were in a position to oblige the ESB to take oil for a far larger price than the ESB would have been able to get it on a spot market——

Deputy, you may not make a statement, you may only ask a question.

I dealt with fuel variation before the Deputy came in.

I realise it is not fair to press this Minister who is standing in for a colleague but I would like to raise this matter on the Adjournment, perhaps not today but tomorrow.

If you want it today you will have to say so now.

Very well, I will raise the matter again tomorrow.

21.