Giving away family silver or reaping a bonanza?

 Dear Sir/Madam,

a good start to 2013 with the Irish Examiner having the guts to cast a critical eye over Corrib Gas. The Irish Offshore Operators Association

has always been very clever in promoting Corrib Gas as 'Irish jobs'. Well, what they carefully avoid is that the jobs, Irish of otherwise,

are only related to the construction phase and have no bearing on the extracting of the natural resource in the ownership of the Corrib

Partners and operation of the pipeline and terminal. 

I have no doubt that the political establishment will line up to cut the proverbial red ribbon to start operation of extraction of gas and

celebrating the bonanza that is secure in the pockets or bank accounts of Shell, Statoil and Vermillion. It certainly will be only a trickle

of tax income for the Irish government after the owners have claimed their entitlement to offset ALL exploration and development costs.

The Norwegian people who set up Statoil to secure their share of natural resources and income from it despite being told that 'Norway

will never be an oil and gas nation' - must be wondering about the Irish people giving away the family silver. I will never forget the

senior civil servant in Petroleum Affair who told an audiance 'we have no oil, no oil at all'.

Well, if a government believes what the industry tells them, and then goes to sleep ever since Kinsale, do we deserve better? Poor Minister Rabbitte will attack anybody who asks him to investigate. Sleep tight.



Thanks for the article.

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Monica Muller