North Atlantic Skyline - - Photographs from the west of Ireland (Galway, Mayo, Clare, Limerick, Roscommon and even Leitrim)

The Rossport Five

Last Chance to See...? Broadhaven - the route of the Shell pipeline.

I have a sneaking feeling that the concept of Compulsory Purchase Orders (CPOs) would be the subject of more debate in the Irish media if a couple of streets on Dublin's southside had been marked for demolition during the Luas construction. As it is, no-one seems too bothered when it's the odd farmer who'll have his farm tarmaced over for a motorway. Sure, what harm? Isn't it progress?

As the Irish Information of Public Services website states,

The compulsory acquisition of land takes place in Ireland to allow a public infrastructure project to go ahead for the common good. The most widely discussed applications of this refer to road improvement schemes and the LUAS project in Dublin.

A CPO is a powerful tool [they were actually introduced in the 1750s, though for most Irish people at the time, a CPO usually wasn't required or sought to remove them from their land]. When an "Authorising Agency" decides that they want your land, you can appeal, but that means a trip to the High Court. If you lose, you pay the legal costs of both sides. Now, the government can decide what is in the National Interest and can therefore be subjected to a CPO. Roads usually fall under that category, as did the gas distribution pipeline project still winding its way around the country. Strangely enough, the government decided not to apply a CPO to the purchase of the site for a new prison in north Dublin earlier this year, instead choosing to pay massively over the odds for land zoned as agricultural. Neither are they applied to telecoms masts, wind farms or even incinerators (far better for the politicians that An Bord Pleanala take the heat for those projects, I guess)

Five men (Micheál O Seighin, Willie Corduff, Phillip McGrath, Brendan Philbin and Vinent McGrath) in Mayo are in jail since last week because of a CPO. Shell want to build a pipeline across their land - they have already signed up half of the landowners but the Rossport Five do not want the pipeline laid across their land. However, Shell do not yet have permission to actually lay the pipeline - the Government hasn't approved it yet - so they have managed to have five landowners jailed for opposing an unapproved construction on their own land. Good old Shell, eh?

As I mentioned two years ago, Shell originally didn't even get permission for the pumping station (the pipeline will feed it). As Lorna Siggins described in Saturday's Irish Times, the An Bord Pleanala inspector ruled against the plan, but was over-ruled by his Board. Even the current Minister for Communications, Marine & Natural Resources , Noel Dempsey , has accepted that the onshore pipeline is 'without precedent in Europe'. That is because Shell will pump the gas at many times the pressure that would be normal for an onshore pipeline [this is the heart of the landowners' objection - that such a high-pressure pipeline massively increases the risks of rupture, and the consequences if one occurs]. Shell are doing this because (a) it is much cheaper than building an offshore pumping station (which would then pump the gas onshore at a much lower pressure) and (b) they were let.

The irony is, as local independent TD Jerry Crowley has often pointed out, Shell have a tax break from the government allowing them to write off all capital costs against their tax bill (which admittedly won't be so high anyway thanks to another tax break). Shell won't incur a single penny extra cost to their bottom line by building their pumping station offshore - presumably, they just couldn't be bothered.

Any hope that the government might intervene would seem in vain. Galway West's own Frank Fahey (former Marine Minister) criticised objectors to the pipeline, accusing them of holding up progress - funnily enough, Frank is not half as trenchant about objectors in his own constituency against the plan to build an incinerator for the county. Frank was the minister who blithely assured the public that the west would benefit from the gas, when no such plan existed. Frank, if Shell decide to build a hot air pipeline, we'll give you a call.

On Wednesday, the High Court will consider the case of the five men. They have been promised a long stretch if they don't promise to allow Shell on their land (Judges really take umbrage when someone defies one of their court orders). Given the crowded nature of our prison system, it would be an interesting exercise for a journalist to find out what five criminals got early release to accommodate the five Mayomen. One inmate that they won't get to meet (because he got out a month ago) is good old Ray Burke. And what does he have to do with it? T'was the bold Ray that signed the deal with the oil company on the first place…

mayo,
ireland,
irishblogs,monasette

Posted by Monasette at July 3, 2005 10:47 PM