Shell's plan to create a major gas pipeline through the Irish countryside has seen local protesters up in arms – and some of them under arrest. Phil Boucher meets the maker of a new film that charts their battle
We raise our children to understand the difference between right and wrong. Yet it is in adulthood that the principle is most sternly tested.
Just what do you do when you believe that the forces of law and order are intimidating and arresting peaceful protesters in front of your eyes? And how do you reconcile your faith in the media, government and judiciary if you think they are blackening the name of a protest group, even though it's members are doing nothing more sinister that trying to prevent a major gas pipeline from being constructed on five areas of EU-protected countryside?
Congratulations to Amnesty International and Front Line for cooperating on a human rights monitoring project in relation to the Corrib Gas/Shell to Sea situation in Co Mayo. Monitoring by impartial parties can play an important role in raising everyone’s game; it was important in increasing police accountability in Northern Ireland in the mid-1990s (e.g. monitoring by the CAJ/Committee on the Administration of Justice) and there is no reason why it should not help to do the same for An Garda Síochána in the Republic.
You would probably have to be a Shell board member or perhaps a certain slippery former Taoiseach (Irish Prime Minister) not to feel moved and infuriated by the documentary ‘The Pipe’, directed by Risteard Ó Domhnaill and screened today at the Millenium International Documentary Film Festival in Brussels.
The faceless might of a multinational corporation, whose will is imposed by the forces of the state that it has bought, against a handful of plucky villagers trying to defend their homes and livelihoods. It’s a familiar tale, and it is brought to us again in The Pipe. But if the people of Rossport, in Ireland’s county Mayo, do have right on their side, the one-sided presentation of events in this film has done little to persuade the neutral viewer like me.
There is a 75 per cent possibility of finding commercial levels of natural gas in the north-west but extracting it will involve the controversial process called “fracking”, the chief executive of one of the companies involved in a licencing option has said.
Studies carried out five year ago estimate that there was 9.4 trillion cubic feet (tcf) of natural gas in the Lough Allen basin or 1.5 billion barrels of oil equivalent (BOE) which would be worth €120 billion at present prices.
A new gas-extraction method known as ‘fracking’ could open up huge energy deposits in the Lough Allen basin. But, with not a hole drilled, disagreements over its environmental effects have already begun. RONAN MCGREEVY reports
- Shell to Set Record with Prelude Floating LNG Structure
Friday, June 10, 2011
Rigzone Staff
by Karen Boman
Shell's Prelude floating liquefied natural gas (FLNG) facility, which will be deployed in the Browse Basin offshore Northwest Australia, will be the largest floating structure ever built. At 1,601 feet long, the facility will be the length of 175 Olympic swimming pools, and at 600,000 tonnes, weigh six times of that of the largest aircraft carrier.
GARDAÍ HAVE appealed for assistance in the investigation of an alleged serious assault at an anti-Shell festival in Co Mayo last weekend.
The alleged assault on a woman took place at the festival on the Erris peninsula between 11.30pm on Saturday, June 4th, and 3am on Sunday, June 5th.
Gardaí are appealing for all those who attended the Party against the Pipe Festival at Aughoose, Pullathomas, Ballina, to contact them. They said some of those who were there had already come forward to assist with inquiries.
Wednesday and Thursday saw a series of occupations and actions against the drilling compound at Aghoos in Mayo as part of the ongoing campaign against Shell. The events culminated in an eight-hour lock-on and a nine hour occupation of machinery which stopped all work for the day. Over thirty people were involved in the events.
News Release - Issued by Shell to Sea - April 12th, 2015 - For immediate release
-- Shell to Sea send submission on RTE's Public Service Statement --
Shell to Sea have today sent in a submission to RTE as part of RTE's public consultation on the updating of their Public Service Statement [1]. In the submission, Shell to Sea claimed that RTE had failed to inform the public in an honest and balanced manner on the Corrib Gas project.