Cork Shell to Sea Call Out -Go to Mayo for Friday September 14th!

national | rights, freedoms and repression | press release Monday September 10, 2007 14:55 by Cork Shell to Sea - Cork Shell to Sea corkshelltosea at gmail dot com

Cork Shell to Sea invites all concerned citizens to go to Mayo for Friday September 14th and protest with the local community against one of the greatest crimes of our age.

Cork S2S activists and supporters will be travelling to Mayo this Friday to take part in the National Day of Protest called by the community campaign in Erris. Once again, Shell to Sea campaigners and supporters will be showing solidarity with and lending their numbers to the ongoing protest by the local community. For seven years now concerned local citizens have opposed the unsafe and unprecedented Corrib Gas project, and they have had the broad support of the community for most of this time. Excepting those few individuals whose business interests have been co-opted by Shell et al, the community’s support for the Shell to Sea campaign endures, and has even deepened.

Read the message Bertie and Eamonn!

Cork S2S activists and supporters will be travelling to Mayo this Friday to take part in the National Day of Protest called by the community campaign in Erris. Once again, Shell to Sea campaigners and supporters will be showing solidarity with and lending their numbers to the ongoing protest by the local community. For seven years now concerned local citizens have opposed the unsafe and unprecedented Corrib Gas project, and they have had the broad support of the community for most of this time. Excepting those few individuals whose business interests have been co-opted by Shell et al, the community’s support for the Shell to Sea campaign endures, and has even deepened.
Erris resident and Shell to Sea spokesman Seán Harrington said, “On Sept 14 Shell to Sea will be holding a sit-down protest outside the gates of Ballinaboy from early morning onwards. The purpose of this demonstration is to highlight the following issues:

1. The Natural Resources of Ireland have been given away to Shell, Statoil and others in a deal that means we pay the market rate to the multinationals for what should be ours. The potential loss to the future prosperity of this country is incalculable, but Minister Dempsey, in his previous role, put it as high as €1 Trillion. We want it back.

2. The currently proposed refinery is only the tip of the iceberg for Erris, as has been admitted recently by the Petroleum Affairs Division. It is intended to use Bellanaboy as the conduit for all future finds in the Corrib Basin, meaning that all 450 acres of land granted to the multinatonals by Frank Fahey will eventually be used as the complex is expanded, with all the human and environmental problems that will inevitably ensue.

3. The refinery is being built in the catchment area of Carrowmore Lake, the water source for 10,000 Erris people, an almost unbelievable proposal which is being vehemently opposed by ourselves and An Taisce.

4. The project currently has no route for the inland section of pipeline which will be carrying untreated, unodorised natural gas at at least twice the pressure of treated gas, the type carried in normal in Bord Gais pipelines. Eight potential routes are currently being proposed, with a modified route taking in some of Rossport being seen as one of the favourites. Once again there is great concern in the community as to where the pipeline might go, how near to houses, etc.

5. Shell are currently awaiting a decision on an Integrated Pollution Control Licence, granted provisionally by the E.P.A and challenged brilliantly by the local community, An Taisce and many other groups in a 3-week oral hearing in April. We fear that, even in the face of compelling presentations in opposition to the granting of the licence, political pressure on the E.P.A will be enormous. The granting of this licence would immediately bring An Taisce into play, with a challenge in Europe, based amongst other issues on the siting of the complex in a drinking water catchment area.

Shell to Sea are calling for support to highlight these and many other issues surrounding the Corrib project , which go to the very heart of the type of country Ireland is becoming in terms of human, civil and land rights, the right to peaceful protest and the very essence of democracy itself. We are calling for a well-attended, peaceful protest. Past events have shown us that violence can arise at these demonstrations. We are asking, therefore, that everybody acts in a totally peaceful manner, so that if incidents do occur, the perpetrators will be easily identified.”
Not only are the safety and heritage of locals at risk, there is also the issue of the giving away of Ireland’s oil and gas resources. Cork Shell to Sea spokesperson Ray Hanrahan said, “The give-away of our resources to multinational corporations like Shell by successive Irish governments is a national scandal, but it took the brutalisation of an isolated and vulnerable community to bring this to national attention. An irreplaceable environment of great beauty is about to be destroyed and future generations robbed in the name of corporate profit. Why should the lives and homes of Irish citizens be jeopardised for no reward in return? And why is this state of affairs the law of the land today?”
Locals in Erris continue to protest peacefully against this project, and for their pains they have been beaten up and continually harassed by Gardaí, and they have been misrepresented in public for having the courage to defend their future and ours too. Cork Shell to Sea invites all concerned citizens to go to Mayo for Friday September 14th and protest with the local community against one of the greatest crimes of our age.