The Gas is Ours: yes we can!

Take back the Giveaway, meeting told.

A Shell to Sea meeting in Galway adopted a new initiative, a nationwide petition for the renegotiation of the State's terms of agreement with the oil & gas corporations. Photos T.D.

Tuesday night (Nov 18th) at the Imperial Hotel, Galway: a packed hall listened enthralled as the The Chief Pat O’Donnell, the Erris fisherman, told a story that was like an episode from an epic film of the seas as he described the standoff when he and his sons in their crab-boats challenged Shell’s enormous pipelayer “Solitaire.” This leviathan, or rather, this floating industrial installation, all girders and derricks and overhanging bridges, aided and abetted by the Gardaí in inflatables and the Navy in an ominous gunboat, was unable to do anything in Broadhaven Bay but glower. The Chief affirmed his legal right to position his boat above his crab-pots, his day-to-day livelihood, and denied the right of Shell’s technicians to move him off them. Once
the Gardaí realised that every time they arrested him his sons and his brothers would immediately take his place, they reluctantly backed away; and so did the “Solitaire.” Maura Harrington, spokesperson for Shell to Sea, laid out the story of Shell’s prolonged violations of the life of Erris; she appealed to the many young people in the audience to take example of those in America who shouted out “Change! Yes we can!” Galway Shell to Sea put a proposal to the meeting, that a renewed campaign should start out with a nationwide petition (see wording below). This was unanimously accepted. Michael McCaughan in the chair gently guided the momentum of the meeting so that in the end we felt that real change was truly possible. Terence Conway, also a Glenaboy spokesperson for Shell to Sea, gave away videos of the Rossport struggle – “Take one, talk about it, pass it on! Watching a video, you can learn more than at a thousand meetings.” Galway Shell to Sea is now truly awake and up and running, as we appeal for other groups to follow through with this campaign and the petition.

PETITION FOR RE-NEGOTIATION OF 1992 TERMS-OF-AGREEMENT BETWEEN GOVERNMENT & OIL COMPANIES
We, the undersigned, call upon our Government, as an urgent priority at this desperate time of recession, to renegotiate the deal done in 1992 with the companies prospecting for oil and gas on the Irish Continental Shelf. This deal effectively gave away the potential profits of the Corrib Gas Field, the Porcupine Basin and Rockall to the shareholders of Shell, Statoil and other energy and exploration companies rather than to the people of Ireland. We demand that the following principles (laid down by Minister Justin Keating, 1975) be revived as the basis of re-negotiation:
· The State, acting for the people as owners of the resources, should be paid for the resources.
· Companies engaging in offshore development on the Irish Continental Shelf should be subject to Irish taxation.
· Since the resources are public property, the State must have the right to participate in their exploitation.

We reject the "patriotic duty" to accept cutbacks on fundamentals of our society (e.g. health, education, social welfare & indigenous industries): we assert it is your patriotic duty to use our oil and gas for the benefit of the people of Ireland, so that the common good may be promoted and the dignity and freedom of the individual assured.