The Story Behind Imprisonment Of Rossport 5

mayo | rights, freedoms and repression | opinion/analysis

Sunday July 10, 2005 13:05

by roisin

Dublin Government’s scandalous ‘sale’ of national Oil and Gas reserves / Rossport 5 denying Shell th

Few have a conception of the size of the government’s treacherous sell-out of national Irish gas and oil resources over which Des O’Malley, Ray Burke, Bobby Molloy, Michael Lowry, Frank Fahey, Dermot and Bertie Ahern, and now Noel Dempsey, have presided.

The Corrib gas field is only a flagship development of gas and oil reserves which reach along the Atlantic Margin from the coast off Kerry right up past Rockall, to Scotland and the Grampian oil field, the Hebrides, the Orkneys and the Shetlands, to the North West Coast of Norway.

Nevertheless it is a key flagship development, where the technology of an on-shore recovery plant, though as yet untried, is low capital cost and crucial to Shell in the exploitation of what are likely to be huge (on the global scale) reserves lying off the entire Irish coast. The consortium owns the exploration licences in Irish coastal waters of 660,000 square kilometres, ten times the size of Ireland.

The Corrib development will ensure for Shell and the consortium the ownership, processing and sale of an unimaginable chunk of the world’s supply of gas and oil, to Europe and beyond, processed by the cheapest method, on shore in Mayo, with no appreciable local jobs, no return to Irish owners of the resource, with Bord Gais paying for the transportation pipeline right to the gas interconnector, with what little servicing of the off shore rigs, carried out from Ayr, in Scotland. The consortium will sell our own gas back to us in Ireland, with no contribution whatever to Ireland and the economy.

Scale of the development

The example of Norway shows the scale of what is at stake in the campaign at Corrib. Norway has become the second largest exporter of crude oil worldwide, after Saudi Arabia. The Norwegian continental shelf will continue as a major source of natural gas for the next 100 years, ensuring the economic strength of that economy, which remains outside of the EU.
Corrib itself is just one part of that development of the Atlantic margin, much of which lies off the coast of Ireland.

Estimates of the value of the reserves at Corrib alone are between 5 and 7 Trillion Cubic Feet (TCF). It is reckoned that each T.C.F. represents a value of _3 billion, which leaves out of account the downstream servicing required to recover and process this gas: of manufacturing: ship and rig construction, infrastructural development of service ports, refineries, petro-chemical industries, amounting to many thousands of onshore and off shore jobs. Imagine this developmental in the context of Ireland, and the rural regeneration of the Western and Northern sea boards.

This is the resource that the Dublin Government, on behalf of all the people of Ireland, has given away over the past decades to the Shell-Statoil-Marathon consortium, for nothing except perhaps their own sycophantic personal gratification at doing what they are asked to do, or perhaps in return for the casual dispensing of carefully selected brown envelopes to gurriers -.allegedly via the FF Galway races tent.

This is the corruption or plain stupidity that the Mayo people and the five imprisoned small holders are demanding be investigated and renegotiated before any further operations at Corrib proceed. This is the scale of the battle that the people of Mayo have joined on behalf of all of the Irish people – against corruption, or crass stupidity, in government

History of the sell out

The scandal began with Des O’Malley in 1967 who gave the Ireland oil and gas rights in shallow waters to Marathon Oil for £500 in perpetuity. In 1971 the Kinsale Head gas field was found. All licenses are sub-et from Marathon oil – a Texas based company, which owns 18.5% of the Consortium.
In 1975 Justin Keating agreed terms for oil and gas exploration with 50% tax levy and gave the state the right to an automatic 50% shareholding in the find and royalties of 6 to 7 per cent.
Although this was subsequently altered by Dick Spring, in 1985, a national stake and financial return from future commercial exploration were protected..

Burke’s inexplicable change

In 1984 Enterprise, a company formed only the year before, by amongst others, Denis Thatcher, began lobbying to reshape the State’s oil and gas agreements. Over the subsequent 3 years, and against the advice of his department, Ray Burke abandoned the 50% Government stake in any commercially successful find - the stake in our own national resources - and abolished payment of royalties.

In 1992 Bobby Molloy, with Bertie Ahern as Minister of Finance, after intense lobbying by oil companies, agreed a tax rate of 25%, thought to be the lowest anywhere in the world for oil and gas exploration. Furthermore this tax could be written off against all commercial activity, developmental and recovery costs, going back 25 years, and not even restricted to exploration in Irish waters.

Frontier licenses

And in the same year, the government introduced ‘Frontier Licenses’ which allowed oil companies to hold a licence for up to 20 years on a drilling location. This means that a company can sit on development of the field, watching market prices, as well as technological development.

If, as is widely believed in the industry, that the oil exploration giants, in the Middle East, have grossly exaggerated their oil reserves, then expectations of price increases, far in excess of those resulting from current war on Iraq, are worth waiting for. Sitting on frontier licences is a paying game.

Enterprise picked up the bulk of these licenses off Michael Lowry, including the Corrib North gas field. The Corrib find is part of a geological structure up to 30 times the size of the Kinsale Head find. Enterprise Oil UK made the massive gas discovery, believed by industry sources to the biggest find yet in European waters. Marine Minister Frank Fahey awarded the petroleum lease to the consortium.

It was Frank Fahey who sold the 500 acre site, owned by the State company, Coillte, at Bellinaboy, for an undisclosed sum, to Shell, upon which development for the recovery station has now begun.

Shell takes over

The shareholders of Shell and Royal Dutch company, formally unified their operations last week. (June 28th), and is valued at £125 Billion.

Shell spotted Enterprise’s position and in April 2002 made a successful and hostile bid for Enterprise Oil UK. Shell bought out Enterprise Oil for £4.7 billion. For that sum, it got not only the Corrib gas field, worth between _15 and _21 billion, (for an overall initial capital investment reckoned by Shell to be _634 million) but also the Enterprise owned ‘frontier licenses’ to develop, as they choose, the huge oil and gas reserves in the Atlantic Margin, the rights to which were sold by O’Malley to Marathon Oil. (18.5% share of the consortium). The consortium has it sewn up, except for Mayo people and their supporters in Jail, whose objections to the raw gas pipeline cross their lands, is a major spanner in Shell’s low cost designs.

Jobs

Is the Bellinaboy Terminal to be the hub for exploration and recovery of the huge reserves Enterprise got the rights to develop along the Atlantic Margin? That surely will at least bring jobs.

Enterprise had consistently refused to employ Irish workers on the rig they hired for appraisal of the Corrib field. As oil rig worker Padhraig Campbell has pointed out over the years, this was because Enterprise did not want any one overseeing the results of their appraisals. So what jobs will come out of the proposed development by the consortium?
The oil industry has made clear that it intends to use their long established Scottish oil and gas industrial infrastructure as a base for their Irish operation via the port of Ayr. Astonishing as it may seem, Enterprise were allowed to operate in Irish waters while using another jurisdiction as a base. The massive spin-off, estimated to be worth at least _1 billion, that it will take to develop the Mayo operation, will be spent in Scotland, where already the infrastructure exists.

But that is dependent upon the on shore raw gas pipe line to the processing recovery station on shore.And this, above all else, is why Shell is so determined to build its recovery station on shore, and not, as has been the practice to date, at sea.

The running costs of the terminal, which Shell might intend, in the longer run, to be the low cost hub for processing of reserves all along the Atlantic margin, will require only a few jobs – an amazing coup for Shell. Only the five Mayo men in jail are standing between them and success in ensuring that Shell gets their facilities cheap, at very low running costs.

As Caitlin ní Sheighin said at last Friday’s Press conference in Dublin, the Shell CEO reported to a meeting with them, that there should be only 27 jobs on the Bellinaboy recovery terminal. As Padhraig Campbell points out, these will be highly skilled jobs, most likely drawn from personnel employed by Shell from elsewhere but Co Mayo.

Meanwhile the Consortium will be selling our gas back to us at going prices, but they may also be selling, through the two interconnections now installed to Britain and through to the continental grid, gas to supply the huge and hungry markets of the EU which in the coming decades may expect to be very eager for gas and oil, as Middle eastern reserves run short, and China looks to meet huge and exponentially increasing demand.

Ireland will indeed be a world player, on a world stage, but denied, by Britain again, the right to exploit our national reserves, this time, through collusion of the Dublin government, and ministers’ sycophancy, dereliction or skulduggery.

Unless of course the Mayo peoples’ campaign, and the five men in jail, bring those responsible to book, review the contracts and stop the Government and oil companies colluding further in the theft of Irish national gas and oil resources.

There is much at stake for the Irish people in the campaign over Corrib and it is not just getting the 5 determined and brave people out of jail! Minister Dempsey has to be stopped in compounding the felony of previous incumbents of the Department of Communications, Marine and Natural Resources.

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Comments (13 of 13)

Too easy to rob from the Irish

by Brian N

Mon Jul 11, 2005 06:24

Brillant article Roisin. Fascinating and shocking. I cannot help wondering whether the anaology between the oil industry in ireland and nigeria is very unfair. It looks in fact that Nigeria is not nearly as corrupt as Ireland because a lot of their oil and gas money does go to the exchequer. Of course to be fair we dont know the real story behind these decisions it could be corruption in the Civil Service rather than the politicians. Anyhow it seems only Justin Keating emerges with any credit.

...

by Claire

Tue Jul 12, 2005 00:19

Great article, pretty horrifying. I didn't know about O'Malley. I'd be interested to know where I could get information on that. Article 2 of the Constitution stated (before it was amended on foot of the Good Friday Agreement) that 'national territory consists of the whole island of Ireland, its islands and the territorial seas'.
Is it constitutional to sell off national territory?

oops

Tue Jul 12, 2005 01:30

I don't mean national territory, but its resources.

Courts: Worthy of Contempt

by James - WSM - Personal Capacity

Tue Jul 12, 2005 11:35

There is an aspiration to social justice in the consitution, rather like the case Ed Horgan took over Shannon's use by the US military.
But it is not an imperative so it can be ignored. So, while the Corrib Gas one may be a stupid deal, it's probably not illegal let alone unconstitutional

Anyway, it is not as if there is an objective meaning to the constitution. In reality, it is subject to a wide variety of interpretations, depending on your political point of view. There are also various methods of interpretating thet constitution, for example, the literal, historical, coherent (read the document as a whole before deciding what one section means), and a few others that I forget.

This is handy for the judges who can pretty make up the law as they go along - after all they're top dog in the state system so nobody can really dispose them. In important cases, especially political ones, judges will, by virture of their training - or indoctrination! - class position, and general intermingling with the rest of the ruling class be aware of the decision that they shoud give. After they know what decision they ought to give, they will use all these modes of interpretation to give the impression of logic. It's an impressive feat in its own right.

If a case is non-essential matter between quarreling capitalists or indeed anything not a threat to the rich and powerful, then the High and Supreme Courts will probably be quite objective.

On the other hand, if upstarts from Mayo challenge the right of the rich (Shell) and powerful (the courts, i.e. the State), they'll get a quickly implemented court order banging them in jail. As did bin tax campaigners a couple of years ago. Which contrasts with the softly softly approach taken to Ryanairs Michael O'Leary in the last few months when he appeared to be in breach of a High Court Order. The court on that occassion kept putting off his commital to prison. Or how many illegal dumpers have been committed to prison compared to anti-bin tax campaigners? This is a list of ideological decisions by the court which could go on for a long time.

Still, the courts are a handy way out at times for the ruling class. If the plebs get too militant, a court decision acceding to their demand usually suffices and saves the government's face, or their own - e.g. the High Court overturns silly decisions of the lower courts like the bail conditions of Mayday '04 protesters. But I'd be much more confident of a decent court decision if there was a strong campaign on the outside setting the political climate.

It's hard to take such a biased institution seriously. But them having the Guards and the Army at their disposal helps!

Referring to one of your points, James

Tue Jul 12, 2005 22:44

Anyway, it is not as if there is an objective meaning to the constitution.

Do you mean that the Constitution has no legal function? that is certainly not the case. Cases can be taken against government actions on the ground of their unconstitutionality - the barrier to that being the cost involved. I think it does no good to dismiss the constitution - it is the source of our most important freedoms, and the reason it is dismissed by most people is that the judiciary themselves like to ignore it.

The constitution states clearly that the law derives from the Oireachtas, and from nowhere else. Yet judges like to rule by precedent, and use British 'common law'. Which is on our side, the Constitution or British law? The former, I maintain, therefore the judiciary have to be challenged on this, and all actions which contravene the Constitution must also be.

The People Vs The Law

by James

Tue Jul 12, 2005 23:30

Claire:
"Do you mean that the Constitution has no legal function?"

No, simply that the constitution means what the ruling class want it to mean at any given time. And judges are part of the ruling class. Often there’s no big controversy as most disputes accept the capitalist set-up and are arguing over the details. Then the courts will probably be reasonably sensible and objective. When something more fundamental is at stake, such as people mobilising directly against the rich and powerful as in Mayo then the fundamental role of the courts becomes clearer. Challenging Shell is one thing. Challenging Shell by taking direct action and refusing to confine oneself to political lobbying and court actions is another and must be nipped in the bud. It’s a very bad example. If they succeed…

Claire:
“The Constitution is the source of our most important freedom.”

The struggles of past generations are the source of our freedoms. The increased rights for women stems from women mobilising over the years especially in the 1960s and 1970s. The state had to respond to that or watch the situation escalate. Same with racial equality and workers’ rights. If we didn’t have all them strikes decades ago we wouldn’t have holiday pay or maybe even holidays. Later these get incorporated into law, for a variety of reasons, not least to inculcate a degree of loyalty amongst a militant section of the people.

A watchful and active population will maintain our freedoms. The more active the people are, the less room for abuse the ruling elites have. The courts will respond to this pressure to some degree. And it does probably help to have a few liberal judges around, but I suspect only a little.

Claire:
“The constitution states clearly that the law derives from the Oireachtas, and from nowhere else. Yet judges like to rule by precedent, and use British 'common law'. Which is on our side, the Constitution or British law?”

I wouldn’t agree there. Loads of laws predate the current constitution and even the Free State. There isn’t any evidence that problems stem particularly from British Law, as opposed to Irish law. The problem isn’t who made the law in the past, but that currently there is a section of the population, namely the rich and powerful, who run society and make all the significant decisions. Many of them are Irish. Their nationality isn’t the problem. Their class interest is.

Besides lots of good things came out of common law. The right to silence, a fair trial, jury trial, reasonable fulfilment of contracts. And lots more. noting that a lot of these things didn’t fall from the sky into long dead judges heads, but like today’s judgements came from external pressures which were subsequently codified into judge made law, i.e. common law. Precedents also make a certain amount of sense. If there was a similar case and a judge had constructed a sound argument for a particular judgement why not save yourself some work and quote it?

Personally I don’t have a whole lot of confidence in the Oireachtas when it comes to administrating Ireland. They’re the people responsible for electing the government after all!

Answering

Fri Jul 15, 2005 00:18

- So, while the Corrib Gas one may be a stupid deal, it's probably not illegal let alone unconstitutional

It wasn't remotely stupid, as this article makes quite clear. It was carried out deliberately - the fact that the criminal Ray Burke made secret deals shows that they were aware of its illegality and criminality.
It is both illegal and unconstitutional, i.e., against the constitution (which was, in fact, the result of a people's movement. What else brought Fianna Fáil into government and kept them there in opposition to an attempted fascist coup?).

For the specific details of its illegality, see the Daily Ireland site: under the 'Comment' section, see: "Letters to the editor: Citizens suffer as foreign companies are given state powers", which I will reproduce in the next comment.

Your references to laws enacted before the establishment of the Free State are irrelevant to the position taken by the judiciary in favour of British common law. The fact stands: this is a sovereign nation with a constitution which alone determines our laws.

If your position is an anarchist one, you have a right to it.
However, this campaign demands our rights as citizens of a supposedly free nation. Therefore we must and will defend the constitution against these blatant attacks.

Not to hijack this thread, I would like to put the question again: was O'Malley's action unconstitutional, and if so, is it actionable?

Letter to Ed

by Daily Ireland

Fri Jul 15, 2005 00:21

Citizens suffer as foreign companies are given state powers

[Pat Healey from Ballinaboy at a demonstration at the Shell Corrib Oil Terminal 1/7/2005 n support of the five jailed Shell objectors from Rossport, Co Mayo PicPhotocall Ireland] The behaviour of the High Court in jailing the Rossport Five for insisting on their Constitutional rights is symptomatic of an utter disregard of the Constitution by the State as a whole.
The terms of the abominable deal the government has cut with Shell/Statoil are: that the entire Corrib gas field has been handed over to these private companies, with no interest retained by the State, with all expenses accrued by these companies over the past 25 years paid by the State, and with no royalties payable to the State; that the gas refinery, the only land-based refinery in the world, will discharge toxins into air, sea and drinking water in an inhabited and environmentally sensitive region; that the high-pressure supply pipeline will pass beside houses; and that the entire Corrib operation will be based in Ayr, Scotland, and Shell/Statoil will neither be using any Irish labour or services, nor are doing so currently except where these are offered for free by the State.
By far the the worst aspect of this deal is that it confirms the denial by all State organs, in principle and practice, of the Constitution’s existence, and thus of Ireland as an independent nation.
Neither the licenses sought by private archaeological firms to excavate along the route of the M3 Motorway in Co Meath, nor the Compulsory Acquisition Orders (CAO’s) sought by Shell in Erris, Co Mayo, were signed by the ministers responsible, even though under the legislation in both cases a minister’s signature is required.
This is because the Carltona Principle or Delegaus Doctrine is used. Under this Principle, a civil servant is delegated ministerial powers, so that the respective Ministers can avoid legal liability, even though there is no Constitutional justification for this activity: the Carltona Principle is based on Common Law, and as such directly contravenes Article 15.2 of the Irish Constitution. I
n other words, the reason the Carltona Principle is invoked, whether it be to grant CAO’s to the NRA or to Shell, excavation licenses to private firms or landing licenses to foreign military aircraft, is to enable a Minister to avoid responsibility for a wilful breach of the Constitution.
An instance of this is former Environment Minister Martin Cullen’s response to the Supreme Court’s decision in 2003 that the Irish State has a constitutional duty to safeguard heritage. This decision confirmed existing National Monuments legislation as being in accord with the Constitution, and essentially made it sacrosanct. Martin Cullen responded by throwing out the National Monuments legislation and introducing the 2004 National Monuments (Amendment) Act, which enables the Environment Minister to order the destruction of any national monument or site for any reason.
Because this Act was introduced in contempt of the Supreme Court decision, all actions carried out under its aegis, for example the construction of the M3 Motorway, are by definition illegal.
Likewise, CAO’s directly contravene the Constitution’s guarantee of an absolute right to private property, yet the Government has allowed Shell to issue CAO’s against farmers in Erris, Co. Mayo, and the Minister for the Marine invokes the Carltona Principle to avoid personal responsibility for his breach of the Constitution. Let there be no doubt concerning this matter: the Government has granted State powers to a foreign corporation, one which has funded and equipped death squads in the Niger Delta. The High Court, by acquiescing in the Government’s gross abuse of power, has become an abetter, pretending, as Government Ministers are wont to do, that Ireland is a “Common Law country”, and that judges can simply stipulate what is the law. But the High Court is not entitled to issue injunctions against citizens who refuse to comply with CAO’s. The Constitution does not recognize corporations or grant them legal rights, which the High Court by conducting its grotesque parody of
due process sees fit to do, so that Irish citizens, who should be defended by the State against such global predators as Shell, can be persecuted for defending their rights.
The Government and the Courts have disgraced themselves in this matter. The Rossport Five must be freed immediately, with a State apology for what is less a miscarriage than an abortion of justice.

Andrew McGrath
Secretary, The Tara Foundation.

From Shell to Sea website

by Article

Fri Jul 15, 2005 00:55

Wednesday, July 13, 2005

Rossport is getting ‘Indian Reservation’ treatment
by Sean Owens, The Western People

The people of Rossport stand up for their rights and indeed for people all over Ireland in a peaceful manner.

These same rights enshrined in the constitution and for which many great men died and suffered are now under threat. The constitution is under threat as the multi-national Shell E&P brings down the sledge-hammer of the law on the Rossport people.

It would be bad enough to have property and rights taken for the general good of the people of Ireland but to have to deliver it up under law to the multi-nationals who do nothing but take our national wealth is beyond comprehension.

When gold was found on the Indian Reservations in the pioneer days of America, the Indians were moved on and the gold seized.

There is a parallel. When Corrib oil discovered gas, the natives of the deprived state of Connacht were ignored, and the gas so sorely needed for the development of the northwest region, was exported to better-off regions.

This is another aspect of the real injustice visited on our people. It has taken the guts of the people of Rossport to highlight the tactics and manipulations employed by Shell and its cohorts who have little care for the safety or welfare of the people they would trample on.

Justice will prevail and those who have taken on the task will eventually be vindicated.

Corporations run our lives!

by william methven

Wed Jul 20, 2005 18:44

williammethven at ireland dot com

This whole appalling story is further evidence of how it is the global corporations who run countries & national governments are simply their local enforcers.
I hope it is issues such as this that will alert people to this fact. It is the corporations who run our country & not the sorry collection of pompous middle class, middle aged , male suits posturing as an "elected government"!
Its time we reclaimed our country!

Illegality

by james seymour - seymour & co solicitor

Tue Sep 06, 2005 13:20

info at seymourandco dot ie

086 8152932

Under the Constitution, all mineral resources belong to the State which is made up of the Irish people. Mineral resources should be applied for the benefit of the people. The State will have to be sued for failure to honour it's obligations under the Constitution. Serious questions have to be asked about a certain person abolishing the royalties when he was minister

Joining the Dots

by M Cotton

Tue Sep 06, 2005 13:45

As with Mayo, so with Cork and the proposal to build incinerators. Different industries, different places but the same ol' same ol'. We need to put our heads together. Please read:

http://www.indymedia.ie/newswire.php?story_id=71766&condense_comments=false#comment120579

European Courts / Legal Action

by Dermot - (undisclosed legal practice in N.Ireland)

Fri Sep 01, 2006 10:38

Don't agree with the emotive anti-British flavour in your commentary, its incorrect, old hat and might damage your argument. However, if you could prove a case against Mr. Burke on the grounds of corruption or collusion or incorrect procedure, or even argue a case on a small technicality or ambiguity in wording of the royalties agreement; then the contract between the Government and Shell(?) might be voidable. Research it in minute detail (especially the legal wording) and bring along someone from the Irish Times perhaps? Even demand an open / public enquiry? Politically no doubt, the Goverment will not want to go there, but if you have enough evidence, your constitutional case is probably worth taking to the European Courts.

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The Story Behind Imprisonment Of Rossport 5

Comments (13 of 13)