BARRYROE oil and gas field must be developed to ensure energy security for the country, a meeting heard last week.

Cllr Peter O’Donoghue (Aon) raised the motion and said the gas and oil off the Barryroe coast has the potential to provide energy security for the next 30 years, while the transition to fully renewable energy takes place.

Three years ago then Minister Eamon Ryan refused Barryroe Offshore Energy’s application to continue oil and gas exploration off the West Cork coast, because he was not satisfied as to the financial capability of the company.

Since then councillors have been urging the Government to review and assess the application for the licence to develop Barryroe which contains an estimated 350m barrels of oil and 207bn cubic metres of gas.

‘This is located in shallow waters less than 100 metres in depth and is one of the largest undeveloped oil and gas fields in Europe. Its development has been stalled by licensing issues where the Department refuses to grant a licence to companies to extract oil and gas from there,’ said Cllr O’Donoghue.

‘This is madness and it could provide Ireland with fuel for the next 30 years. It makes far more sense for the likes of Whitegate to be supplied with light crude oil from only a few kilometres away as opposed to thousands of miles away.’

Cllr Finbarr Harrington (Ind) seconded the motion, and said that over the next 20 years the country will still need fossil fuels until the infrastructure is fully developed for renewables.

‘We have a large oil well of the West Cork coast complete with a storage unit in Whiddy island which is under used. We could look at putting in a small refinery there.’

Cllr Isobel Towse (SD) opposed the motion and said the country is secure with 90 days’ of oil in storage units should a crisis emerge.

‘There is no shortage of oil in this country but we do have a price issue and a global warming issue,’ she said.

‘It’s the reliance on fossil fuels which makes the price of energy so expensive. Producing oil at home wouldn’t necessarily make the prices lower just like in the UK. We need to upgrade and decarbonise the grid.’

Cllr Eamon Horgan (SD) agreed with her and said that in relation to the Barryroe gas and oil field it‘s better to ‘let sleeping dogs lie’.

‘If it was so viable we would have tapped into it by now,’ said Cllr Horgan.

Cllr Deirdre Kelly (FF) said many councillors have been working on this for some time including former colleagues, Cllr Joe Carroll and Cllr Patrick Gerard Murphy.

Cllr Daniel Sexton (Ind Ire) said: ‘We’re importing oil from across the world and no one is talking about the carbon footprint there and if we had this oil field the money could be ringfenced for renewable energy.’

A counter motion by Cllr Horgan to focus solely on gas and not oil was defeated by 32 votes to three with five councillors abstaining.

Councillors agreed to write to the Minister for Climate, Environment and Energy on the issue.