Free The Rossport 5: Shell 2 Sea Protest

by Jimmy, Belfast Sat Aug 27, 2005 01:07

I think its a disgrace whats happening to the farmers in Mayo - sent to jail for looking after their families welfare and their land. Its a disgrace and the Dublin Government should be ashamed of themselves for what they've done.
I'll be at the protest to show my solidarity, i think everybody should get active on this campaign. Good Work Ogra -
'Shell to Sea, Free the Rossport 5'

by Gearoid Sun Aug 28, 2005 09:48

Dublin Government???

Most people down south here regard it as the Irish government, just a minor point but important at the same time

by Micky from monaghan Tue Aug 30, 2005 18:47

I live in the Freestate and im right to call the Bertie and the boys the dublin goverment, we will only call Leinster House, Dail Eireann and the Irish Goverment when we have a United Soverign Ireland, by the way, keep up the good work Ogra - Fian abu!

by mary belmullet Wed Aug 31, 2005 11:17

The issue here lads is not what we call the govt dublin -irish ..whatever... it is that this govt has rode rough shod over the rights & safety of the people of Rossport & its hinterlands in its efforts to facilitate a Multi National Corporation- Shell/SEPIL to bulldoze through its pipelaying & refinery project permitting Shell to ignore standards and safety and in fact permitting it to be installed while not under the watchful eye of any state environmental or health protection agency or otherwise at all and only for these courageous men and the rest of the concerned people involved the project would still be going ahead. That is the issue, as is the issue of how these men are still being kept in jail while according to SHELL these men were obstructing work at the time of the injunction, but now since all work has been stood down, there is little point to this injunction. To me this shows that natural justice and the execution of the letter of the law are very often at odds.

by Ah come on lads! Wed Aug 31, 2005 15:20

Good to hear somebody speaking some sense. As for the freestate baiting, come on. Capitalism is the problem not an eighty year old civil war.

by the freestater Thu Sep 01, 2005 13:43

I love the way all the sinn feiners are jumping on the bandwagon on this one. Sinn Fein and the IRA mean fuck all to anyone in mayo. They definitly no nothing about bog and laying gas mains. All anyone in the Provos knows anything about is getting people out of jail and dealing their own particular type of justice (i.e knee capping or maybe shooting them and hiding the body).

by In favour Thu Sep 01, 2005 14:30

...Shell have been through the ringer on this project for over 5 or 6 years and been through countless examinations and hoops to get approvals and consents. Thats hardly bulldozing is it? I am in favour of the gas pipeline. We need to see this type of infrastructural development in the west. this will halp attract industry and modernise a neglected area.

I am sure there are genuine safety conerns but these can be addressed and dealt with through dialogue and the safety review. have you ever seen one of the pipes that this gas will be going through? Put it this way, i would be far happier about this not rupturing than one of the less thicker BGE pipelines that run all over the country and outside peoples homes. These BGE pipes are also much more likely to be interfered with by external forces like diggers and the like.

I have sympathy for the Rossport 5 but believe them to be blinkered and unaccomodating. they should come out of prison and start talking.

by Connacht Thu Sep 01, 2005 15:02

"...Shell have been through the ringer on this project for over 5 or 6 years and been through countless examinations and hoops to get approvals and consents. Thats hardly bulldozing is it?"

I certainly think that issuing Compulsory Acquisition Orders against landowners who do not wish to sell their land (a tract in the middle of a field, essentially splitting up one's farm and property and hindering one's access to the shore etc) constitutes bulldozing. It is taking land by force, against people's will.

"We need to see this type of infrastructural development in the west. this will halp attract industry and modernise a neglected area."
- if you have been in North Mayo in the last six months you will have noticed that the only area which is being improved infrastucturally as a result of this investment is the road from Bangor to Bellanaboy and the road around the terminal site along which the lorries carrying peat from Bellanaboy to Bangor are to travel. Mayo County Council's budget cannot seem to stretch to any other road improvements in the area. And how will this development help attract industry? It will certainly do nothing for tourism.

"I am sure there are genuine safety conerns but these can be addressed and dealt with through dialogue and the safety review. "
Would you trust the findings of a safety review that does not address what the consequences of a pipeline leakage/rupture would be to the surrounding communities at various distances? All these reviews do is assess the safety of the pipeline itself - not the safety of the people. How can one trust the findings of a safety review of an onshore section of a pipe, when the Minister for Communications, Marine and Natural Resources has since given consent to lay the 70km offshore section of the same pipe in essence? Surely you don't believe that where such project-splitting means that variuos sections of the one project are assessed independently of each other, and where consent has been given for the offshore section, that those conducting the safety review can possibly come to any conclusion other than that the current design of the pipeline is safe? It certainly prejudices the review, and it makes it quite apparent that that it is to go ahead is a fait accompli.

You talk about your fear of rupturing pipelines. These pipes may be thick, but the pressure of the gas in these pipes will be so high that if they do rupture, the consequences will be diabolical. The focus should be on the consequences of a rupture, not about the mickey mouse game of what the likelihood of a rupture is, thereby gambling with people's lives.

by curious Thu Sep 01, 2005 15:28

what are you suggesting? a world free of gas pipelines? Hardly likely

Should all flights into dublin, shannon or knock airport be stopped because there happens to be people who live in their flight path?

where do you draw the line

by In favour Thu Sep 01, 2005 15:43

.Connacht - if you apply that logic nothing would be uilt. What are the consequences of a plane falling from the sky on the population of Shannon or Swords? What are the possible consequences of a 10 car pil;e up...etc etc. there are risks and consequences in everything in life. You just need to examine the liklihood. Your argument is flawed and when you strip it back down boils down to......NOT IN MY BACK YARD

by Síog Thu Sep 01, 2005 16:55

You can not possibly compare.

We know the gist of what will happen if a plane crashes on its way to or from our airports - Death & Mayhem.

We know the gist of what will happen if there is a multi car crash on our roads - Death & Mayhem.

We know the gist of what will happen if a severe storm hits our shores - Death & Mayhem..

What we do not know, and what we are not being told by those who should know, is any indication of what will happen if this pipeline bursts.

This nonsense of Not In My Back Yard really annoys me. This type of pipeline is not in anyones backyard. Not here in Ireland and not anywhere else in the world. The Rossport 5 and their families are brave people. They are sacrificing a lot every day - even before their imprisonment on 29th June 2005.

Now stop the rubbish. Sure be in favour of gas coming in. We all are. But do any of us want north west Ireland to become an experimental pit?

by In favour Thu Sep 01, 2005 17:33

It seems that onshore gas processing is not a new thing at all. I have read about numerous onshore pipeline and it is becoming the norm.

Anyway- even if you dont want to open your mind to the possibility that you might be wrong the fact still remains that if we applied your logic, we would never build anything. Just because its a first, doesnt automatically mean its unsafe (and I dont believe that this is a first). Something has to start.

by Connacht Thu Sep 01, 2005 19:21

One can make the sweeping statement that onshore processing is becoming more common, but you are being misleading in that you fail to qualify your statement by further specifying that where gas/oil is refined onshore, that it is NOT the norm for production pipelines to pass through inhabited areas. You will note that Andy Pyle and Mark Carrigy of Shell E&P Ireland Ltd. have quoted 2 projects in Norway and one in Australia that they claim to be parallels to the Corrib one - Andy Pyle, Shell MD again makes this claim in a letter this week to the Western People newspaper - but they never give the details of those particular projects, which is that in one of them, the gas comes ashore onto an uninhabited island and that the processed gas goes out again without ever coming to the Norwegian coast, and in neither of the other two projects do high-pressure pipelines containing non-odorised gas pass through inhabited areas or by people's homes. This is fact.

I can appreciate what you're saying in terms of precedent - that everything had to be tried a first time - but the process has been so flawed in its entirety from the very beginning, with the developers and government so reluctant to provide information to interested parties, e.g. how much did Coillte get for the land for the Bellanaboy refinery site? what exactly is in the project development plan and who signed it off? why did the government/Shell refuse for so long to publish the QRA? why did Frank Fahey push through changes in legislation specifically to facilitate this project? - that one senses that the safety of the people of Rossport was never a big consideration for the developers/executive as subterfuge rather than dialogue seems to have been their preferred approach. So I think it is quite logical that people feel they can't trust gov/Shell and therefore, do not wish to be guinea pigs in their untested development.

You can make predictions on the likelihood of plane crashes happening etc., as risk assessment is based to some extent on historical precedent, but you cannot make predictions on an unknown quantity where the historical data is non-existent.

by ciarrog eile Fri Sep 02, 2005 06:52

The eminently well-informed, well-read and well-considered approach in postings by Connacht
MUST give pause to those content to wallow in ignorance of the facts of the case.

It goes without saying that the greed of those huxters who fail to address fully their own ignorance and govt/Shell chicanery for profit
is put to DISGRACE straight away
when the hard work of the people of Rossport in their own defence over FIVE YEARS is given even a cursory attention and respect - the very least due to neighbors and countrymen.

- And thank you, Connacht, for your measured
tolerance of vulgar ignorance posted here.
And thank you, too, for exhibiting here
your real wisdom and the fruit of real education in the face
of pure crass greed from the willfully uninformed short-term profiteers who would sell out their neighbors for their own gain.
Thank God you restore faith in what a thoughtful concerned person from the Province is capable of expressing in the greater interest.

Do please shout it from the rooftops.
And again.

by DV8 Fri Sep 02, 2005 14:07

Kenny move rejected by Shell

02 September 2005 10:13
A move by Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny to find a legal compromise to help bring about the release of the five Mayo men jailed for contempt of court over their opposition to the Corrib Gas pipeline has been rejected by Shell Ireland.

Following a visit to the men at Cloverhill Prison, Mr Kenny said a legal precedent dating back to the 1970s might offer hope of a compromise.

However, a spokesman for Shell said the case in question varied in many ways from the current one.

The five men have now been in jail for two months. So far, they have refused to purge their contempt and Shell has refused to lift an injunction it has taken against them.

The Fine Gael leader asked Shell to examine a legal precedent based on a 1977 High Court case which he said might offer the possibility of a compromise between the company and the men.

He said that case had drawn a distinction between criminal and civil contempt.

He suggested to Shell that, as work on the project had been temporarily halted, it should consent to the men's release while leaving open the possibility of seeking the same order if the need arose in the future.

Reacting to the suggestion, a spokesman for Shell said the 1977 case being cited by Mr Kenny varied in many ways from the current one and the company believed a legal impediment to removing the injunction remained.

Efforts to bring about the release of the five men are to continue but, despite several initiatives in recent weeks, there appears to be no sign of an early breakthrough in the controversy.