Maura Harrington Released On Emergency Budget Day

national | miscellaneous | press release Tuesday April 07, 2009 17:28 by Dublin Shell To Sea

Shell to Sea campaigner, Maura Harrington was released from Mountjoy Women’s Prison this morning after serving 28 days. Maura had been imprisoned for allegedly slapping a member of Garda Siochana, a charge which she denies.

Maura proceeded from Mountjoy Women’s Prison to Dail Eireann, where she was accompanied into the Dail by Aengus O Snodaigh TD and Martin Ferris TD. Maura met with press outside Dail Eireann where an impromptu press conference had been called.
Maura called for an end to the gas give away: “Our pension fund was given to bail out the banks, and we now stand to gain nothing from our own natural gas and oil resources. The government is putting pressure on the people of Ireland today with this new Budget, but the oil and gas companies are feeling no pressure.”

MAURA HARRINGTON RELEASED ON EMERGENCY BUDGET DAY

Shell to Sea campaigner, Maura Harrington was released from Mountjoy Women’s Prison this morning after serving 28 days. Maura had been imprisoned for allegedly slapping a member of Garda Siochana, a charge which she denies.

Maura proceeded from Mountjoy Women’s Prison to Dail Eireann, where she was accompanied into the Dail by Aengus O Snodaigh TD and Martin Ferris TD. Maura met with press outside Dail Eireann where an impromptu press conference had been called.
Maura called for an end to the gas give away: “Our pension fund was given to bail out the banks, and we now stand to gain nothing from our own natural gas and oil resources. The government is putting pressure on the people of Ireland today with this new Budget, but the oil and gas companies are feeling no pressure.”

Speaking at a Shell to Sea press conference in November 2006, then Green Party leader Trevor Sargent said "The root cause of this problem goes right back to the way in which the giveaway deals were done for exploration licences and it is comparable, in historic terms, with the Act of Union of 1800, in the way a dodgy deal can be made to look legitimate," Sargent said in 2006.

Meanwhile, there is a growing public awareness of the scale of the giveaway of Irish gas and oil by the Government, of which Sargent is now a member. Based on Government figures for the estimated size of Ireland's gas and oil reserves, something in the region of €540 billion worth of our natural resources will be given away to multinational companies over the coming years. This giveaway arises due to legislative changes made by ministers Ray Burke in 1987 and Bertie Ahern in 1992.

“The oil and gas companies do not have to pay any royalties and all taxes are cost deductible. This is an insane situation on a day when the Irish Government is trying to claw back 3.5 billion euro in an emergency budget which cuts essential public services. To add further insult to the people of Ireland, not only will we not gain monetarily in any way from our own gas and oil resources, we will have to bid on the international market for this oil and gas. We have no security of supply despite Shells assertions to the contrary.” Caoimhe Kerins of Dublin Shell to Sea said.

Maura Harrington vowed to continue in the local community’s struggle against the Corrib Gas Project. “Glengad beach and the Glengad area are not available to Shell. They never will be. Shell can come and they can fight. They have been trying to get rid of us for ten years. We are not going anywhere.”

On Monday 6th April Naoise O’ Mongain, Maura’s husband and local fisherman, Pat O’ Donnell traveled to London where they read out a statement from Maura Harrington at an international human rights event which included representatives of amnesty International, EarthRights International, the U.S. Center for Constitutional Rights and Greenpeace. Harrington had been invited to attend but was unable to due to her imprisonment.

The event, at the amnesty International Centre in London, was intended to highlight a court case in New York next month, in which Shell and one of its senior executives are to face charges relating to their complicity in the execution of Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight other anti-Shell activists in November 1995.

www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/apr/05/shell-saro-wiwa-execution-charges

Maura Harrington
Maura Harrington, former principal of Inver National School, close to Shell's refinery site, has been a prominent member of the campaign against the proposed inland refinery and high-pressure pipeline. The campaign began in November 2000. It adopted the name Shell to Sea in January 2005.

Harrington has just served two weeks in Mountjoy Prison for allegedly slapping a garda in the face in June 2007. She denied the charge, but declined to offer a defense after Judge Mary Devins refused to allow video evidence of the incident in June 2007 to be shown in court.

On the occasion in question, on 11th June 2007, 20 local people were injured by gardai when Shell contractors attempted to force their way onto private land with a digger. Several needed hospital treatment. Shell subsequently conceded publicly they were in the wrong in trying to access the private land of Paddy McGrath. However, no action has been taken against gardai involved in the violence on that day.

Local campaigners have brought hundreds of complaints to the Garda Ombudsman Commission relating to the policing of protests at Shell's refinery site. These detail incidents of punching, kicking, finger-breaking, throwing into ditches, verbal abuse and harassment.

ENDS

FOR VERIFICATION, COMMENT OR MORE INFO, CONTACT:

* Maura Harrington, 087 9591474
* Caoimhe Kerins 085 8328130