People Before Profit has called for the return of Ireland’s oil and gas resources to public ownership in order to help generate revenue for the State.

The party, which is part of the United Left Alliance umbrella group in the election campaign, published its policy on energy and natural resources today.

Dr Kieran Allen of the school of sociology in UCD, who helped produce the policy, said there was an estimated €750 billion worth of oil and gas of the coast of Ireland at a “conservative” estimate.

The party had not had the benefit of access to expertise within the Department of Finance in order to establish exact figures or to assess the potential for generating revenue from such resources, however.

Dr Allen said Ireland had the “second lowest” government “take” in the world from natural resources.

“If a county is in massive debt, what are you going to do about this?”

He said Norway, a comparable country, took 78 per cent from its natural resources while Ireland’s “take” was just 25 per cent.

The party was critical of former minister Ray Burke for the changes he made to legislation governing oil and gas exploration in 1992.

It called for the nullification of existing contracts with exploration companies such as Shell, and for the oil and gas fields to be taken into public ownership.

Dr Allen said this could be the cornerstone of a new industrial policy.

“We are not promising pie in the sky. What we are saying is that it’s a huge asset and that asset could either be used to borrow, or it could be put into development.”

Pat O’Donnell, from Rossport, one of five men jailed for obstructing Shell’s activities at the Corrib gas field, was in Dublin to support the party’s policy today.

“The United Left Alliance and a few independents and Sinn Féin are the only people talking about reclaiming out natural resources where all the wealth of the State is being given away at the stroke of a pen by corrupt politicians,” he said.

He was critical of other policies such as the EU fishing quota, which he said had “destroyed” many coastal communities here.

“They are creating massive employment with our fish but we learn nothing from that. Here we are again today signing off oil and gas to oil companies, giving it away for nothing and destroying nice small communities in the west of Ireland to do so, like the community I come from in Rossport. The place is destroyed.”

People Before Profit councillor Richard Boyd Barrett said he believed the natural resources if developed properly could generate “at least €5 or €6 billion, if not considerably more than that” each year.

“That’s the entire amount of the budget that attacked the vulnerable, the poor and low-income families during the recent budget.”

He expressed concern that the Government’s memo of understanding with the IMF in relation to the bailout opened up as a “serious option” the possibility of selling off further State assets.