Part 1: Nnimmo Bassey on Fracking & Shell in Ireland 20-8-2012.mp4

Last week my alternate column colleague, Fr Kevin Hegarty, was critical of my article on the Corrib gas project.  He singled out the use of the word ‘debacle’ in the headline.  I would like to bring to his notice that the headline ‘Corrib Debacle Continues’ was inserted at the sub-editing stage.  My headline was ‘Cavalier Corrib Marches On.’  I might add that the use of the word ‘debacle’ in the headline is something I wholly agree with.  I used the word in the body of the article to describe the ‘recent tunnelling convoy debacle.’  I make no apology for its use.

I made two phone calls to Shell offices in Mayo and Dublin the previous week for a comment on the cross-country convoy.  I was not afforded the good manners of a reply to either call.  Fr Kevin, acting I presume as an apologist for Shell in his column, is, perhaps, their response, I do not know. 

Fr Kevin described how good Shell is for the county and listed various support programmes that it has instituted for north Mayo.  The trans-national company has done all of that but only after it and statutory bodies were challenged every step of the way by local people who questioned their motives in the area. He admitted that he is a member of Shell’s Third Level Scholarship Programme.  How many people from the parish most affected by Shell’s work are on any of these committees?  How many of the people whose lives have been and are being continuously disrupted by Shell and their private security firm are benefiting from these schemes?