Mountjoy prison S2S picket

dublin | crime and justice | event notice Thursday May 21, 2009 09:55 by DublinS2S

Dublin Shell to Sea will be picketing Mountjoy prison from 3pm, Saturday 23rd May in solidarity with imprisoned Erris campaigner Maura Harrington. Come along and join us at the prison.

For reasons still unknown, in 1987 and 1992, ministers Ray Burke and Bertie Ahern made bizarre changes to the law governing Irish gas and oil exploration. They reduced the state’s share in these resources from 50% to zero %, abolished royalties and slashed the tax rates. As it now stands:
• The gas and oil is 100% owned by the oil companies who find it and bring it ashore.
• The state receives no royalties.
• The oil companies will pay only 25% corporation tax. (In Norway it’s up to 78%) ...
• But 100% of costs can be written off against tax. Remarkably, this includes costs incurred outside Ireland – all the company’s accountants have to do is link these costs to the project in question. They can also write off the costs of all unsuccessful (i.e. non-gas-producing) wells.