Shell Judge: "If they are wrong compensation will be paid. Isn't that what compensates everyone?"

mayo | environment | feature Thursday June 09, 2005 01:42 by James R/Eoin O'Broin

"Scam alert!" sez Wag "Gas stolen from people and if gas blows the people pay the compo"

UPDATE: Thursday, Jun 9 2005: Locals Force Shell's Trucks to Back Down
excerpt A local resident was driving up a road, with no traffic mangement, at around 5.30pm today, and was obstructed by two large trucks carrying pipes to the Shell compound at Rossport. The resident was then told to reverse and make way for the trucks as the narrow roads cannot accomadate such traffic. He refused and was soon joined by 15 supporters.....read the full report (with photos)

Judge - Just because I thought it was right to give an injunction against the landowners doesn't mean I was right. A hearing will determine that.
Philbin - I want the Minister for the Marine for 2002 in court to testify whether he signed the original order or not.
Judge - You can do that at a hearing - not today.
Philbin - The plaintiff argued in seeking the injunction that the Facility was in the national interest. The government has thus facilitated a private company from getting a Compulsory Acquisition order for the company's own private gain. The Irish State will be buying this gas back from Shell at top dollar. How can this be in the national interest?
Judge - It might not be in the national interest. If they are wrong compensation will be paid. Isn't that what compensates everyone?
Philbin - Money can't fix safety.

Not so long ago on Indymedia Ireland - Maura Harrington, a local campaigner implored people to come down to the solidarity gathering in Rossport against the construction of a Shell pipeline through the area. She said that “once you see the area you will agree with us that it is not the place for a gas refinery and an unprecedented high pressure up stream pipeline." How right she was. Last weekend over two hundred people travelled to the back arse of Mayo to take part in a Reclaim The Beach celebration of resistance to Shell in the area and to attend workshops on Shell’s brutality in Nigeria, engage in walking tours of the area led by local campaigners and enter into a dialogue on how best to advance the campaign. (Reclaim the Beach Photo-Essay)

Continue reading at the 'Feature Continues" link below for an account of the recent High Court hearing on the Shell pipeline and an Indymedia interview with a couple of the local farmers who are campaigning against Shell's Plans.

Yesterday in the high court, several of the local farmers traveled to Dublin outline their opposition in the High Court to the pipe line going ahead and have an injunction against them lifted after they prevented Shell from entering their land without proper consent. From what I could make of it, the judge brushed aside concerns over health and safety, promising merely to turn them into money once an accident occurred as the following extract from the rough court report shows:

Judge - It might not be in the national interest. If they are wrong compensation will be paid. Isn't that what compensates everyone?

Philbin - Money can't fix safety.

What follows is an interview with two of the farmers refusing to grant Shell access to their land and a court report.


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We’re lucky that they haven’t hanging here. If they had we’d be gone now - I wouldn’t be here for this special interview.

So Brendan, perhaps to start off you can give us some outline of your opposition to the pipeline?

Brendan: We believe that there is more gas out there than they are letting us know. If its done on shore all else will be sacrificed as regard Carrowmore Lake, the water for all Erris, all the rivers, all the roads all the whole of Ireland as regards air pollution and everything else, the whole area is going to be degraded and destroyed because at the moment its fairly pristine as regards the air, the water and the environment, ya know? So all of that hasn’t been taken into account at all as regards this on shore section of pipeline that they propose to build through Rossport. It’s never been done in the world before, because usually this type of development never passes further than half a kilometer or so from the shore line so its de-pressurized like, and the reason it’s so dangerous is you’ve a pressure of 345 bar plus an umbilical, running alongside, plus electrical control and all these other contraptions, you’re talking about five different pipes as well. And you can not get distances away from private houses, and no statutory body will take responsibility for people or the area.

Philip: I’m only 70 metres from the pipe and it should be a minimum of a quarter of a mile from the house. They won’t recognize other houses because they are not land owners, if the court got injunctions against us we wouldn’t be able to go forty metres either side of the pipe, I’d be confined in my own house, maybe even able to walk to the garden but that’s about it. I couldn’t turn left when I go out the gate, I’d have to turn right! Go four miles out of my way if it came to that.

There has already been some accidents with construction hasn’t there?

Philip: Well, it’s at a standstill now, it’ll be a week tomorrow since they had the spill in the lake.

Brendan: Last week, the bun they made on the site for the terminal and the gas in Ballinaboy, they burst and water got into the streams that lead directly to Carrowmore lake. And the fishery board brought this to the notice of Shell, and they’re stopping the peat haulage now. This is a very serious issue because Carrowmore lake is supplying water to all Erris and further more its one of the most natural and best salmon fisheries in the areas. So all that has to be protected, ya know?

Fishing and farming seems to be the main industry in the area? What have the fishers done about the pipe line?

BrendanWell, the fishermen did object to the land fall pipe out at Broadhaven Bay and there were no baseline studies as regards the fish in Broad haven Bay. But there was a study carried out by UCG on mammals, dolphins and whales and I have reason to believe that some of that report was withheld. I have seen that report myself, it’s a very valuable document and the amount of whales, dolphins and fish in the area has led the professor who started the report for Enterprise Energy back in 2001 to state that this area, the small area in Rossport and Broadhaven Bay was so valuable they should go to any length to have it protected because of the amount of different species of whales and dolphins that feed their, the different fish life in abundance, the very large concentration of mammals in this area and none of this has been taken into account.

A lot of the stuff you are saying is coming from an environmental angle, but there is another side to this isn’t there? If the pipe goes through how will it affect your ability to farm?

BrendanIf this proposed pipeline goes through, I won’t be able to farm my land, in fact I won’t be able to live in the area because they can’t give us any example of this been done in the world and the latest example would be that it should be no closer than five hundred meters and at that you’re inside the danger levels. We believe there has been no fully independent quantitative risk assessment done on this pipeline and that is one of the things we have been looking for for years. What the minister proposes to do now a very diluted version of the QRA and it’s not acceptable. This is not what the minister granted his original consent for in 2001 to Enterprise Energy.

At the entrance to the camp site over the weekend there was a sign saying “Thou Shell Not Rape Erris” referring to the exploitation of natural resources to line the pockets of a private corporation, what do you think of that?

Brendan: It’s the first time in the history of the state that a private company has been granted a compulsory acquisition order for their own benefit i.e. the Irish government have no shares in this company and they have to buy back their gas at the full market value from this company. But having said that like, if the company decided as they should and have the gas cleaned at shore and took the pipe line to shore under the Bord Gais standard, we have no problem with it, we are definitely not against the gas coming ashore as we have been accused of. We want the thing to be done right, people to be kept safe and the environment to be kept safe.

Philip, you also have a sign up outside your house with a noose hanging off it saying “Nigeria 1995, Rossport 2005” that’s quite a powerful statement, what’s the story with it?

Philip: Well, I suppose it’s only to bring the reality of Nigeria to Rossport we’re in the same situation, but we’re lucky that they haven’t hanging here. If they had we’d be gone now - I wouldn’t be here for this special interview.

Rossport is a very isolated area, one bloke I was talking to before said most people make their money from farming and fishing, while he had to travel 20 miles for work. Won’t the pipe line bring jobs? Seemingly it’ll provide “25 jobs from the neck down and two from the neck up” as some locals are putting it?

Brendan: This is the propaganda that has been put out from Shell that it’ll be of great benefit to the area as regards unemployment. In my estimation you have an asset out there that’s worth billions and if all it can provide is twenty to thirty permanent jobs there’s something wrong somewhere. It’s of no national interest to the area. Erris is the size of Louth and the whole area is going to be sacrificed for one private company, it is a total shame when the statutory bodies don’t stand up for what they’re supposed to stand up for and say “no, if we want to do it, it’ll have to be done right and off shore.”

Philip: I was talking to a fella the other day there at the security compound, I spoke to one French guy there. He said he was foreman of the fitters, and we were talking about safety and that sort of thing, and he says ‘everything is guaranteed 100%.” We know ourselves there isn’t such a guarantee. He also told me they are now working a basic eight hour day and they can’t even survive, he said since they came here four of his laborers have actually gone back to France because they weren’t getting paid at all. On a basic pay they can’t survive here, they’ve no money to send home, they’re on minimum wage. All they get free is a taxi to the airport and a flight. But they said it was fifty in the beginning, that’s dropped now. The French fella also said they’d be testing the pipe, we believed it’d be 345 bar , he said it’d be 800 bar. That means they can put the gas through at anything up to 800 bar.

There was quite a funny mix of people in Rossport last weekend for the Solidarity gathering and the Reclaim The Beach Party, how can these people support those in the locality standing up to Shell and what did ye make of the gathering?

Brendan: Its very important from my point of view that the true facts be put before the people, to contact the locals who are affected and get the true facts of how they are been affected. All we are doing at the end of the day is standing up trying to protect our families and our rights, and as residents and as Irish people under the constitution we deserve the state to defend us.

Philip: We were seven on our own, but after that weekend I can see that there is great supprt out there for us. It puts a new life on everything. I’d like to do it again. And I’ll add there wasn’t has many hairy mary’s as I thought…ya know the rough ones, the eco warriors… there was one and sure I look rougher than him! But the way things are looking today, we’ll have to call on them sooner rather than later. Physical support is what we need, and financial support we haven’t gotten bills from the solicitors yet. And the people in Rossport know it’s dangerous, but they say “we’ve signed now let it off!” I was very close myself to signing a long time ago. But I asked a question on the day yer man came to me, something about safety that I’d read in the paper. That was three years ago, I haven’t heard from him since, and I’m still waiting for an answer.

Where do you see all this going in a few Weeks?

Brendan: Having been in the high court today, before the judge it’s quite apparent that it’s going to be a long slow dragged out process.

"If they are wrong compensation will be paid. Isn't that what compensates everyone?"

Shell V's McGrath and others.

Case for mention in High Court today, Tuesday 7th June, 2005, at 11am. Presiding Judge: President of High Court Justice Finnegan.

Plaintiffs represented by Patrick Hanratty S.C.

Litigants McGrath & Corduff represented by Michael Ford S.C. while litigants Philbin & McGarry represented themselves. Litigant Muller not represented.

Rough transcript from 11:20am on. Judge - Just because I thought it was right to give an injunction Against the landowners doesn't mean I was right. A hearing will determine that.

Philbin - I want the Minister for the Marine for 2002 in court to Testify whether he signed the original order or not.

Judge - You can do that at a hearing not today.

Philbin - The plaintiff argued in seeking the injunction that the Facility was in the national interest. The government has thus facilitated a private company from getting a Compulsory Acquisition order for the companies own private gain. The Irish state will be buying this gas back from Shell at top dollar. How can this be in the national interest?

Judge - It might not be in the national interest. If they are wrong compensation will be paid. Isn't that what compensates everyone?

Philbin - Money can't fix safety.

Judge - It's not my job to determine safety. It's Mr Hanrattys to prove It is safe and yours to prove it is not. Philbin - That's why we are here. If the company had done their Homework they would know they can't put such a pipeline through a residential area.

Judge - I have to be satisfied that injunction was correct decision to make and as such want to get to the hearing as quickly as possible.

Philbin - Very well. END Mr. Brendan Philbin. START - Ms. Bríd McGarry

McGarry - Why is todays hearing not in Mayo. It is most inconvenient for us.

Judge - That's not my fault.

McGarry - There was a piece in the Times of May 10th written by Lorna Siggins stating that Shell knew then that B.P.A .were part owned by Shell. However they have stated since that they did not know until May 25th. In addition to this I want some other documents made available to me, the original QRA plus some other discoveries.

Judge - Mr. Hanratty has assured me that he will get them.

McGarry - I want to return to the point about when Shell knew the consultants were part owned by Shell. It goes without saying that the Minister should have known from the start that the British Pipeline Agency were Shell. I have the letter from Eugene Collins which proves that Shell engaged in fraudulent concealment. Shell are thus in contempt.

Judge - That is a matter for the hearing. I will not be dealing with that.

McGarry - Apart from that there is the matter of affidavits.

Judge - Affidavits are water under the bridge now.

McGarry - I am a lay litigant. I have not been furnished with 1st, 4th, 5th , 6th , 7th claim/counter claim.

Judge - I will sort that out.

McGarry - The plaintiff has yet to receive their EPA pollution licence. This is another matter which shows what a fiasco the whole thing is. Lorries are going off the road goodo in Mayo.

Judge - I am attempting to get a deadline for the receipt of all outstanding documentation. June 29th.

McGarry - Just on another point. Can the plaintiff determine Health & Safety issues before the pipeline is laid?

Judge - Safety was not the point of the injunction. If they get it Wrong you get money. That's it.

McGarry - Surely as a resident I have rights?

Judge - There are conflicting views here. The hearing will decide.

McGarry - The difference between me and the company is that the company should not have constitutional rights whereas I should.

Judge - There are incidents where rights apply to different parties.

McGarry - I want to see all documentation.

Judge - For mention again on June 29th.

***An Archive of Indymedia Ireland Features On This Issue Can Be Found Here***