Sligo 'Shell to Sea' events
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press release 
Thursday September 08, 2005 21:48
by Sligo - S2S
JUSTICE FOR THE ROSSPORT 5 - North West
The 'Shell to Sea' group are organising a 'Justice for the Rossport 5' march, rally and benefit in Sligo on Saturday September 10th.
The group are highlighting the fact that five farmers from Rossport, a remote village in North Mayo, have been imprisoned at the request of Shell Oil for objecting to what they call 'an illegal and dangerous gas pipeline' being built on their land. The men have been in prison for over seventy days now and appeals to the have court injunction lifted have repeatedly failed.
Shell to Sea claim 'this is a national outrage. Shell, Statoil and the Government are supporting the jailing of five innocent men who did nothing except object to a very dangerous pipeline that was being built on their land without their consent and without the necessary planning documents. It's part of a bigger plan to built one of Europe's biggest gas refineries on fragile bogland in one of Ireland's most unique and beautiful regions.'
A spokesperson said 'the people of Ireland are becoming more and more aware of what is at stake here. It's putting Irish lives at risk so multinational companies can extract our resources at the cheapest possible price. There's an estimated 20Billion Euros worth of gas in the Corrib gas field and rogues like Ray Burke have ensured that we won't benefit from this enormous resource. In fact, we'll have to buy back the gas at market rates whilst the people of Norway, where Statoil is based, will benefit more than we do.'
Earlier in the summer Sligo Borough Council and Sligo County Council passed motions in support of the Shell to Sea campaign, which is calling for the gas processing to take place at sea, which is normal practice.
Saturday's march will assemble at the market yard at 3pm and march to City Hall where Gerry Cowley TD, the families of the Rossport 5 and local supporters will hold a public rally. Later that night a fundraising gig will be held in the Trades Club on Castle Street featuring bands, DJs and songs.
Comments (19 of 19)
Jump To Comment: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19Well Done ,
Keep it up.
The 5 have shown great resilience.
But can anyone explain to me why, given that the pipeline is being built without consent, without the necessary planning permission in a moving bog and will put lives at risk, a higher Irish Court and the European Court have not even been asked to rule on the illegal imprisonment.
Confused.
.....none of what you have said above is correct. No wonder you are confused!
It's all true.
Like Jim, I think that these are avenues which people should be encouraged to explore. My understanding of this is that the people have gone through all the relevant processes at the relevant stages, in the natural chronological order as events occurred, and that they were committed to jail before an appeal of the injunction could be heard, and while in contempt of court, the judge will not hear any cases from them. No need to be confused!
This is not at all a confusing situation.
The orignal financial basis for this project is a disgrace.
The community in Rossport have legitimate concerns about the safety of this project, which are being ignored.
The current review is not going to address the safety issues adequately. It is therefore invalid.
Shell will make a lot of money even if they move their refinery out to sea.
The whole row is unnecessary. Shell should back off and get on with their pipleline without further ado. Leave Rossport alone.
"the pipeline is being built without consent "
The pipeline has not been built yet. As I understand it this depends on the outcome of a hearing into the safety aspects of the pipeline which should take place in October.
"without the necessary planning permission in a moving bog and will put lives at risk"
The refinery has planning permission. The pipeline "permission" will presumably be a new Ministers order.
"a higher Irish Court and the European Court have not even been asked to rule on the illegal imprisonment."
As far as I know Friends of the Irish Environment have sent complaints to Europe on a number of grounds. However given the lenght of time it takes such processes to reach decicion in Europe they cannot be relied upon. More importantly the 5 should appeal their case and the planning permission to the Suprme court but alas the millions of euros that would require are not there... Wheras one Judge in the High court ( President Finegan) can get away with consistently siding with Shell it is difficult to see this being possible for the authorities to arrange with all 7 of the Supreme court judges. Start rattling the buckets!
Shell is in contempt of court by bringing a case against the five while working beyond their permissions.
This is why they have unilaterally stopped work.
If there is one thing Shell are afraid of it is European Courts and justice.
As is said "there is no need to bribe Irish judges when one can see what they will do unbribed"
The European judges are different.
No Irish judge will go near this case while there is an injunction ij force.
This should work to the advantage of the 5.
If the five quickly exaust their Irish court possibilities they can have their incacseration quickly ruled on in a preliminary manner by the European Court.
Afterwards, Shell should be challenged in Europe on their lack of overall planning permission which is against European law.
The scallywags at Shell are skating on thin ice and they know it.
One serious challenge and they would be exposed.
I work in the offshore construction industry, mainly in the subsea pipeline construction division. The issue of safety during activities overides anyother factor in the job. The vessel I work on has completed 1,500,000 manhours without safely without hurting anyone or damaging the envoirment.
What trying to impress on the reader is that the industry has extreme focus on safety, whether it concerns the personnel involved in the construction, the end user or third parties.
Also, this is an industry that attracts highly paid professionals that DO know their job. It would never happen that work carried out on a project would result in an icident that would be damaging both to them and their company.
What people need to realise is that this type of project is nothing new and is miniscule to similar projects in other countries such as the UK and Norway. In fact there is an onshore gas processing plant being constrcted in Norway which covers and area equivalent in size to 23 international soccer pitches.
The objectors should realise that the risk they talk about is imagined and that the successful completion of this development wil benefit both the local and natioanl economy.
i'm delighted to hear there has never been any problems with oil companies, i must have imagined all those oil spills.
Well done Cathal....some reasoned and sane views. Thanks
Cathal, you are being highly selective in your posting. With all due respect, obviously the oil/gas exploration industry is run by experts, but accidents do happen, and when they happen the effects are devastating. All the risk calculations in the world on the likelihood of a rupture or leakage of the pipeline in Rossport will not actually be able to predict the time and nature of such, as you should know, as a lot of risk calculation is based on historical precedent. Each accident changes the chances slightly. The safety of those people living in close proximity to the pipeline is paramount. In Norway and elsewhere, and it's strange that people have to keep on repeating this, such high-pressure pipelines simply do not pass by people's homes. I would be interested in your comments about the BS8010 safety corridor and safety distance calculations, which, if actually implemented fully in the design of this pipeline, would deign that the pipeline could simply not be installed in Rossport, as the distances required from the 110 minimum operating pressure to the 345 maximum operating pressure simply do not exist between the proposed route of the pipeline and people's homes. This is not to cast aspersions on anyone's expertise but I don't think it's fair to expect people to take on this risk. Why can't they process the gas off shore?
Sorry, forgot to add another bit. I and other readers I'm sure would greatly appreciate it if you could specify what the benefits to the national and local economy will be from this project so that we can have an open debate on the thread. My understanding of this is that SEPIL have only guaranteed 27 jobs in the long term which would go to experts in the field, i.e. not locals. When questioned further, they raised this figure to 48. This hardly constitutes enormous benefit to the local economy. The number of locals employed in the construction phase to date has not been economically significant (of course, it is great for those individuals who got work, and fair play to them, but let's look at this in its macro context). Most workers were either (1) Italian (2) being bussed in from Ballina every day. The local B&Bs didn't get as much business as they had hoped for either because of where the workers were from/based.
The road from Bellanaboy to Bangor where the peat is to be dumped was greatly upgraded, but this I'm sure will be at the expense of every other road in Mayo as the county council paid for most of the cost. I believe SEPIL are to contribute to the cost also. Not only that, but the weight of the lorries is so great (roads built on bog) that they will need constant upgrading due to cracking.
Furthermore, it is not planned that Mayo will get any gas. I'm not sure of the economic benefits of this project.
Ok lets not look at the local benefits and apply the macro angles as you suggest. have you noticed that Ireland has one of the highest levels of energy costs? This, i accept , is for many reasons but one of the most compelling is because, as our indigenous gas supply runs down from Kinsale, we are now importing approximately 80% of our gas from places as far away as eastern Russia. In other words we are at the end of a very long pipe. We are expoosed to the real danger of an interupted gas supply if anything were to happen in any of these other regions that could affect the supply of gas. On the other hand we have a rising demand for electricity consumption as our economy grows and expands at the rate it has done in recent years. So gas is used to create electricity.....so we have a real weakness as our secure supply of gas (Kinsale) is depleted. Hence the Corrib gas project is a very significant one and from a macro perspective has fundamental benefits to the Irish Economy. This point was well made by the ESRI last week.
Remember, this is the macro argument. Dont come back with a micro analysis.
Anaithnid
Your talking out your ass.
140 people working on the project when it was shut down.
75 from Mayo. The remainder were in rented houses in Belmullet and Bangor and being bused in from there.
No one was bussed in from Ballina.
Ask any of the land lords that bought houses in the hope of renting them for 5 years and are now selling them for less than they paid for.
As usual more shell to sea lies
Excuse me, "facts", but I am not a member of shell to sea or any other organisation, so if you want to attack me, that's fine, but there's no need to slur anyone else in the process.
I think people building B&Bs especially for a project like this coming in, are people who are obviously motivated by business principles rather than safety principles - I've nothing against business but isn't it unfair that those people living alongside the proposed pipeline will probably never be able to get planning permission for houses either for themselves or for business purposes if that pipeline goes in, and that their farms, already small, will be devalued because of the fields being divided in 2 by the pipeline? The jobs involved in construction were short-term jobs that would go once the construction phase would be over - I probably should have specified that in my earlier post. Shell have never been able to guarantee (well, not even guarantee, but state it to be the case) that there would ever be more than 27-50 long-term jobs in the area as a result of this project.
In Favour, as usual, is being misleading - "we are now importing approximately 80% of our gas from places as far away as eastern Russia." - we have an interconnector to Scotland which means that most of our gas imports come from the North Sea, hardly an unstable region by modern standards.
In Favour also emphasises the importance of the Corrib gas project, as stated by the ESRI last week. In Favour has read this before, but refuses to accept the point, that no-one has an issue with the gas coming ashore, it is the way in which it is proposed to bring it ashore that people object to. If Shell bring it onshore safely, they can still make colossal profits, and the rest of the country can be happy to have a secure energy supply for the next 15/20 years. Although a gas supply for 15/20 years hardly sounds like a secure future.
Just because we have an interconnector to Scotland, this does not mean that we get our gas from the North Sea. Fact is we are importing more and more from far reaching places in europe and eastern europe. thats just a fact.
With regard to the issue of you not having a problem with the gas itself, then lets see the Shell project design and methodology being assessed (again) by another independent party as to its safety. this can make a judgment rather than misguided (if well meaning) amateurs.
In Favour, you have changed your tune - you have gone from saying that "we are now importing approximately 80% of our gas from places as far away as eastern Russia" to saying that "Fact is we are importing more and more from far reaching places in europe and eastern europe". Is it 80% or is it "more and more"? Fact is, actually, that we import most of our gas from the North Sea.
The Shell design and methodology is being assessed again, as you state, but the design hasn't changed; the pressure at which the gas is to be brought ashore through people's land and by their homes has not changed. This is the immediate objection that people have to this pipeline. As for referring to people as amateurs, the bottom line is that no-one knows who they're writing to or addressing on postings like this. Furthermore, one does not need a PhD in Physics to interpret the documentation supplied on the dept of marine website on this project. You hardly think Noel Dempsey is an expert? Or other civil servants who have worked their way up through the system? Come on!
I never said the design had changed. I am just saying that the experts should be allowed review it from a safety perspective and make recommendations. Let the experts deal with it and not be left to well meaning amateurs.
The safety review is going ahead. No-one is preventing that from happening. But reviewing a spec which is flawed in its essence is a pointless exercise. The granting of phased consents has already dictated the outcome of the safety review. But let's wait and see...
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