Posts Tagged ‘Ireland’

The Irish Times – Friday, March 5, 2010

MARY CAROLAN and LORNA SIGGINS

THE STATE and oil giant Shell have lost their bid to stop two Mayo residents pursuing High Court claims as to whether a ministerial consent given eight years ago for the Shell Corrib gas pipeline is valid.

Ms Justice Mary Laffoy ruled yesterday that Brendan Philbin and Bríd McGarry were entitled to have that issue and other public law claims determined by the court.

Responding to the ruling , Ms McGarry of Gortacragher, Co Mayo, said last night that she was “delighted that we can continue with our counter-claim”.

Ms McGarry and her mother Teresa owned 20 per cent of the land on the original Corrib gas pipeline route.

McGarr Solicitors, acting for Ms McGarry and Rossport landowner Mr Philbin, said the defendants welcomed the judgment. Shell EP Ireland said it had no comment to make.

The residents claim it is in the public interest to have the court decide the issues.

Among the issues they want determined is whether the consent of the minister for natural resources of April 2002 for the gas pipeline was valid. They are also challenging the constitutionality of provisions of the Gas Act 1976 under which the consent was provided.

In preliminary motions, the State and Shell had asked Ms Justice Laffoy to rule that the residents were out of time to bring claims for orders quashing the ministerial consent and various compulsory purchase orders over certain lands acquired for the pipeline, including lands of Mr Philbin.

The residents had set out their claims in 2005 in a defence and counterclaim to proceedings brought against them by Shell, which led to five men, including Mr Philbin, known as the Rossport Five spending 94 days in jail after refusing to abide by an order not to interfere with the pipeline work.

Shell later discontinued its proceedings after saying it would seek an alternative route but the residents want to proceed with their counter-claim.

Ms Justice Laffoy found while the reliefs sought fell within the scope of the relevant court rules, the time limits set out in those rules did not apply in the circumstances of this case.

She said the challenge to the ministerial consent and the compulsory acquisition orders was first initiated by the residents via their defence to a private law action by Shell against them.

In that action, Shell relied on the validity of the consent and acquisition orders to establish the lawfulness of and justify its actions against the residents, she said. The residents claimed Shell’s conduct was unlawful and were seeking remedies in those circumstances.

If she was wrong and the time limits applied, she believed the residents had not set out good reasons for extending the time limits.

The impugned consent and other instruments related to a major infrastructural project involving enormous expenditure by Shell and the residents were not entitled to take a tactical decision to postpone their public law challenge pending the outcome of the planning process.

The judge noted the court’s jurisdiction to review the constitutionality of provisions of the Gas Act 1976 is derived from the Constitution. Once a person has the necessary legal standing to bring such a challenge, no time limit could curtail that jurisdiction, she said.

The judge ruled the residents were not barred from pursuing the claims advanced in the public law module of their case.

The Irish Times – Thursday, February 18, 2010

LORNA SIGGINS Marine Correspondent

SHELL EP Ireland has confirmed that work on several key aspects of the Corrib gas project will not now take place this year.

The company told The Irish Times yesterday that the decision was taken for “operational and community reasons”.

It will undertake further work on the offshore pipeline this year, but intends to take an “integrated approach” to the offshore/onshore dimension next year, when it hopes that “permitting processes” will be “further advanced”.

In a letter to stakeholders issued by Shell managing director Terry Nolan, he says that the laying of the 84m umbilical, which provides the link between the Ballinaboy terminal and the Corrib field for remote control of subsea gas production facilities, will be postponed until next year.

The company explained yesterday that the umbilical laying would have involved re-establishing a works site at the Glengad landfall.

“In the past this has been a site where tensions have arisen during works. Having no works site there in 2010 will, it is hoped, minimise the exposure of the local community to such potential tensions,” its communications adviser Colin Joyce said.

The Corrib gas partners are awaiting a final decision from An Bord Pleanála on the onshore pipeline and have sought an extension to May 31st to provide further information on their application under the Strategic Infrastructure Act. Last November, An Bord Pleanála found that up to half of the proposed new onshore pipeline route was “unacceptable” on safety grounds, due to proximity to housing.

It suggested that the developers explore another route, up the Sruwaddacon estuary, but the company has said it is satisfied that the current proposed route meets all international safety standards.

In recent correspondence with An Bord Pleanála, Shell consultants RPS have queried aspects of the Bord Pleanála finding.

The Department of Communications, Energy and Natural Resources chief technical officer Bob Hanna also criticised the decision, arguing that it was based “solely on consequence” with no attention given to mitigating measures. Mr Hanna has intimated that the planning board’s approach may establish a “precedent” which could have “the effect of prohibiting all significant infrastructure developments”.

Mr Hanna’s intervention has been criticised by Shell to Sea in Mayo, which also held a protest outside Castlerea prison yesterday in support of fisherman Pat O’Donnell. Mr O’Donnell was given a seven-month sentence last week for his part in surrounding a Garda car during a cavalcade in September 2008 and a separate public order offence at Glengad.

Mr O’Donnell’s boat was sunk in Broadhaven Bay last year in controversial circumstances, ahead of offshore pipeline laying. “Pat O’Donnell and his family have become only the latest victims of abuse as a result of the Corrib gas project,”community group Pobal Chill Chomáin has said.

SOURCE ARTICLE

Last November, something interesting happened. It turned out that the headbangers of the Erris peninsula, the “extremists” who have been blocking the completion of Shell’s Corrib Gas project, were neither crazy nor extreme. An Bord Pleanála wrote to Shell’s planners, rejecting the proposed route for half of the gas pipeline, in terms that largely vindicated the protesters.

Prominent Shell to Sea campaigner Maura Harrington, who was convicted by Judge Groarke yesterday of obstructing a gate with her car at the Shell compound in Glengad on August 13th, 2008, will be sentenced tomorrow.

The company was also required to submit a revised environmental impact statement by Friday.

But the officials didn’t even stop to blink. They tipped their forelocks to the oil executives, gave a two-finger salute (metaphorically speaking, of course) to the local residents and told the hearing they were entirely satisfied with the project. The rest, as they say, is history

“The Corrib gas dispute in many ways tells the story of modern Ireland,” Mr Murray said. “The result has been an erosion of civil liberties and the emergence of corporate rule, where multinationals appear to have greater rights than Irish citizens,” he said.

“I respect An Bord Pleanála’s recent decision. It is an independent and competent body that is removed from any influence. They have made their decision and now Shell has to respond to that,” he continued. The board has ruled that almost half of the new route was “unacceptable” on safety grounds.

GAS from the controversial Corrib field off Co Mayo will not come ashore until at least 2011, 15 years after it was first discovered. The disclosure came after An Bord Pleanala ordered oil giant Shell E&P Ltd to redesign the pipeline and move it away from homes because it poses an “unacceptable risk”. Residents gave a cautious welcome yesterday after Shell was ordered to re-route the pipeline for a third time.