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Blast from the Past

RTE failed to truthfully inform the public on Corrib

By: 
Shell to Sea

News Release - Issued by Shell to Sea - April 12th, 2015 - For immediate release

-- Shell to Sea send submission on RTE's Public Service Statement --

Shell to Sea have today sent in a submission to RTE as part of RTE's public consultation on the updating of their Public Service Statement [1]. In the submission, Shell to Sea claimed that RTE had failed to inform the public in an honest and balanced manner on the Corrib Gas project.

Posted Date: 
12 April 2015

Gardaí, GSOC, ‘whistleblower reprisal’, Corrib Gas and the ‘rape tape’

By: 
IrishOilAndGas.com

Garda whistleblower Maurice McCabe’s first contact with a TD came about because he saw Clare Daly TD on ‘Tonight with Vincent Browne’ talking about policing of Corrib Gas protests, writes William Hederman

The repercussions for Garda whistleblowers Maurice McCabe and John Wilson will be familiar to others who have publicly embarrassed An Garda Síochána. They were clearly acting in the public interest, but their revelations brought the force into disrepute, and the two men suffered as a result. Revenge was exacted – not only by colleagues, but also by way of public denunciation by the Garda Commissioner (“disgusting”), the Minister for Justice (“not co-operating”) and by various other parties loyal to the force.

Posted Date: 
3 March 2014

Sharing energy with Norway

By: 
Colm Rapple - Letter to the Irish Times

Sir, – Minister for Energy and Natural Resources Pat Rabbitte’s response to Fintan O’Toole’s article (August 16th) on our offshore licensing terms and his intention to issue new licences under the current licensing terms is disingenuous in the extreme (Opinion, August 18th).

Posted Date: 
23 August 2011

Letters to the Irish Times - Wed 25th Oct 2006

Madam, - Terry Nolan of Shell's call for "real dialogue" on the Erris pipeline/refinery stand-off does not convince. He says, for example, that "the project has been through a rigorous planning and consents process". This is disingenuous: did he not notice Lorna Siggins's report in your edition of October 19th which referred to omissions from the original environmental impact statement regarding cold venting (the release of contaminated gas into the atmosphere), and explained how the Oireachtas Committee on Communications, Marine and Natural Resources refused to allow North Mayo residents to address it on this issue?

'They can protest, but they cannot delay it'

By: 
Miriam Cotton - Indymedia

A portent of all that was to follow on the discovery of gas off the Mayo coast must surely have been that all of the local SIPTU and other workers who had been involved in the exploration were immediately dropped. Foreign workers from the Phillippines and elsewhere were flown in and out from that point onwards - without ever touching Irish soil.

Shell made cash offer to businessman

A Co Mayo businessman told a protest rally this morning that an employee of Shell Ireland had offered him €15,000, with no strings attached, in 2005 for a sports centre he was developing.

Ciarán Ó Murchú, who runs an Irish language school and adventure centre at Elly Bay, said it sounded alarm bells for him because as a large employer he would be effectively intimidating his employees to support Shell if he accepted the money.

He said he would have felt like a traitor to the local community - although an offer of €15,000 was very tempting.

Whale strandings due to 'seismic activity'

By: 
The Irish Times

The Irish Times - 6th May 2000

A marine biologist has warned that the increased incidence of strandings of a rare whale species may be due to underwater noise pollution caused by exploration companies.

Dr Simon Berrow, chairman of the Irish Whale and Dolphin Group, said increased seismic activity of exploration companies off the west coast could have contributed to the deaths of four Cuviers beaked whales over the past two months.

State concern over oil investors after blast

THE 1980 government was worried about scaring off potential oil company investors if it placed too much emphasis on the finding of the Whiddy oil terminal disaster tribunal that the two firms involved were seriously at fault.

Corrib Gas Archaeology: Paper given at Contemporary and Historical Archaeology Group conference, Sheffied 2007.

The Cork poet Theo Dorgan  recently remarked that he was,

“born into a Republic, and now finds he lives in an economy.”

Where Dorgan was once a citizen of the Republic, he now finds himself reduced to the status of producer/consumer in an economy.