Budget 2010 - 'A Fair Deal For Ireland'?

By: 
Mick - diaspora.ie

Next Wednesday Ireland will learn the outcome of one of the most important budgets in decades, and it won’t be pretty.

The talk will be about €4 billion of cuts and €72 billion of national debt, so what about the €420+ billion worth of natural resources off the west coast of Ireland – isn’t that worth another look.

Why?

Because those resources are going to an oil company in what’s described as one of the biggest giveaways in history…

  • There are a series of gas and oil fields extending along the west coast of Ireland
  • These include the Dunquin, Porcupine and Corrib fields
  • The combined value is somewhere between €420 – €540 billion
  • The value of the Corrib is somewhere between €10 – €50 billion

Shell to Sea will be one of the groups protesting outside the Dail next week, and they have a point. Shell hope to be pumping Corrib gas by the end of 2010 / start of 2011. Ireland will still be suffering from the recession and seeking ways out of debt.

Link: 

http://diaspora.ie/starship/2009/12/budget-2010/

Keep Out of Prison

Keep Out of Prison
“Keep out of prison” he wrote
“Don’t get arrested anymore”
But while the land is ravaged
And our pure air poisoned
When streams choke with pollution
Silence would be treason
Punishable by a term in prison

                                                      Ken Saro Wiwa

 

This week, 25 people will appear in court in connection with charges relating to their opposition to the Corrib Gas Project.  The courts are on Monday, 7th, Tuesday, 8th, Wednesday, 9th, Thursday, 10th of December in Belmullet District Court and in Ballina District Court on Tuesday 8th.  On the 16th December, 3 more local people will appear before the District Court in Castlebar.

This is part of the new Erris News, which is available on the Leaflets page here.

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Primetime Special on Michael Dwyer in Bolivia and IRMS: http://www.rte.ie/player/#v=1061676

Review of Ken Saro Wiwa Memorial Weekend

By: 
Rudiger - Indymedia

This weekend saw the annual Ken Saro Wiwa memorial weekend being held in Erris, Co Mayo. This was the 14th such memorial weekend, and is held in memory of the Ogoni leader who was hung along with 8 other men because of their opposition to Shell. The weekend was organised as Sr Majella McCarron, who told the assembled crowd during the weekend of how she had worked closely with Saro Wiwa for 18 months while she was in Ogoniland and continued to communicate with him up until the time he was detained and subsequently hung.

Link: 

http://www.indymedia.ie/article/94997

Irish grass roots clog Shell oil pipeline

By: 
John Murray Brown - Financial Times

As the road approaches the Shell gas terminal at Ballinaboy on Ireland's Atlantic west coast, only the posters pinned to the telegraph poles give any hint of the country's longest-running environmental protest.

The uninterrupted view of green fields running down to the ocean could be a screen-grab from an advertisement for the Irish Tourist Board.

But for the past four years this remote but beautiful corner of north Mayo has been the setting for a bitter industrial dispute. At times, hundreds of police have been deployed to break up pickets. And this summer, the tiny hamlets of Glengad and Rossport looked on as two Irish navy frigates moored in Broadhaven Bay, apparently there to stop the protesters' dinghies interfering with the Solitaire, Shell's vast pipe-laying ship.

Exactly how a grass-roots campaign led by a retired schoolteacher and a handful of hill farmers and lobster pot fishermen has frustrated Ireland's most important energy project perplexes industry experts.

Link: 

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/ecac2c4e-d31a-11de-af63-00144feabdc0.html

North Mayo residents say ruling vindicates their stance

By: 
Lorna Siggins - Irish Times

NORTH Mayo residents have said that An Bord Pleanála’s ruling on the Corrib gas onshore pipeline is a “vindication” of their stance on health and safety grounds.

Pobal Chill Chomáin spokesman John Monaghan and resident Mary Corduff also said that Minister for Energy Eamon Ryan and his department had “serious questions to answer” in relation to endorsement of the safety of the proposed modified pipeline route at the oral hearing .

Read Full article here

See a clip of Winifred Macklin speaking at the Mondays People's Forum here

Listen to a new song called "Rossport Blues" by Fred Johnston here

Link: 

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2009/1104/1224258024802.html

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