Review of Shell to Sea's Someday Independent

national | environment | opinion/analysis Wednesday November 18, 2009 12:41 by Cian Lynch - WSM - Workers Solidarity wsm_ireland at yahoo dot com

“Someday Independent” is a 4 page leaflet produced by Dublin Shell to Sea. The design/layout and graphical work is of a very high standard and compares favourably to high cost, professionally produced brochures. The overall colour scheme and design is a pleasing blue “wave” design which is easy on the eye and appropriate to the subject material without drawing too much attention to itself.

The leaflet employs a satirical headline which emulates the tabloid style - put something controversial and attention-grabbing on the front cover to catch the reader’s attention. But in this case, the headline “Ireland Strikes it rich, all cuts to be scrapped”, has a deeper purpose, which is to make the very salient point that the huge wealth contained in the Corrib Gas Field would be sufficient to solve our economic woes many times over.

A sidebar along the bottom of the front page brings the difficult to grasp figure of 420 billion euro into perspective by showing some examples of what such money could provide, for example: “300 times the annual pension levy”. This is an excellent tactic which brings the figure down to earth and shows the practical value of the Corrib Gas field reserves to the current economic predicament.

A side box on the 2nd page summarises the background to the gas giveaway originating with Ray Burke and Bertie Ahern 20 years ago and the new terms and conditions they introduced for oil and gas exploration and exploitation.

Columns are split up in a logical way so that each covers a different area of concern – one column deals with the news and media personalities involved, detailing their links to resource extraction multinationals and the web of connections that can be drawn between media figures, the Gardai and Fianna Fail. This is useful stuff.
Other columns cover the origin of the quoted figures, questions of security of supply, safety concerns, and the possibility of a better deal being made. Useful quotes are interspersed along with the text – one from Green Party member, Trevor Sargent, highlights their cynical about-turn from a previously strident and principled opposition to the Gas Giveaway.

A former director of Statoil, Mike Cunningham, gives a very illuminating quote: “No country in the world gives as favourable terms to the oil companies as Ireland”. Coming from a former oil company director, this is quite something to consider!

On the last page, a brief summary of the history of campaign to date is presented, which is especially useful in showing the length of the struggle, the breadth of individuals and organisations involved, and the frightening levels of abuse (both verbal and physical) dealt out by the Gardai and Shell security forces to those resisting this project.

The final page also gives over a side column to a checklist of actions which the reader can take to help the campaign and contact details for Shell to Sea Dublin. It’s a solid way to end a very effective leaflet which should be distributed as widely as possible.

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You can see the PDF of the leaflet at http://www.dublins2s.com/content/120000-all-facts-leafl...buted

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This article is from the forthcoming issue of Workers Solidarity, this is its first online publication