Community group to address Corrib at Oireachtas committee

Anti-Corrib gas community group will now address Oireachtas committee meeting

ANTI–CORRIB gas community group, Pobal Chill Chomáin has reversed its earlier decision not to attend a Joint Oireachtas Committee meeting on offshore exploration today (Tuesday).
Its  Chairman, Vincent McGrath, confirmed yesterday that the group decided to make a presentation to the committee after it was assured that ‘our community’s experiences can be aired’ at the meeting.
Deputy Andrew Doyle, the chairman of the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Communications, Natural Resources and Agriculture, invited the group to make a presentation earlier this month. In their response last week Mr McGrath wrote that the group’s key concerns for the ‘health and safety of the community had not been addressed in a multitude of fora and settings.
“No integrated, cumulative risk assessment has ever been conducted on this project. Laws have been changed, standards amended, European rules ignored in order to advance the project,“ he continued.
However, Mr McGrath, along with John Monaghan, Mary Corduff and local Parish Priest, Father Michael Nallen will now make the formal presentation this afternoon. 
In a statement yesterday, Shell to Sea cited article 10.1 of the Constitution – which refers to natural resources and their royalties belonging to the State – as a key reason for not attending today’s meeting. Spokeswoman, Maura Harrington said that ‘in good faith’ the group believed they ‘would be facilitating economic treason through the continued giveaway of our oil and gas at a time of current and future hardship for the Irish people’.