Callout from Rossport - Inform the public

national | rights, freedoms and repression | news report Tuesday November 28, 2006 04:31 by dinny the farmer

a weekend visit to Rossport - the heart beat of political consciousness in Ireland

A visit to Rossport focuses the mind on the issues at stake.

Come and see for yourself: this project is fundamentally flawed, needs to be, and will be reconfigured.

A renewed effort at informing ourselves and friends & the wider public is needed, to create broader awareness of the issues here.

SET UP YOUR OWN SHELL TO SEA GROUP
LOBBY YOUR LOCAL POLITICIANS
WRITE LETTERS
REGISTER TO VOTE;-)

What is happening in Rossport is amazing. and looking down on the scene from behind McGraths Pub, all i can say is that whoever planned this project had a great mixture of Arrogance and Stupidity.

Retired builders, carpenters, teachers, scientists, professors, doctors, unemployed people, nuns, ex-local Fine Gael chairpersons, former army captains, students, fishermen, factory owners, metalworkers, sheep-farmers, musicians……..This is no rent a crowd.

What's happening in Rossport is making the people there into almos mythic figures.....it's incredible to speak to people, some of whom, by their own admission, hadn't even the benefit of a national school education, who have been transformed by their struggle, into highly organised, motivated & articulate political activists.

Rural Rossport is the heart beat of political consciousness in Ireland today.

The on-going drive to build a large pipeline and gas processing in the middle of Rossport community has transformed these people.

There are 3 possible reasons to explain this:
1. Some one has tampered with the water supply in Erris
2. these people are all insane
or 3. these people have deep concerns and important objections that, having been given the deaf ear by the political/planning process, now feel forced to break the law in order to be heard.

- Imagine that your government is going out of it’s way to allow a private company sell gas from an well 70 km offshore by running a exceptionally highly pressured pipeline right through your rural community, with no proper consultation or consent, to a Gas processing terminal, on a state-provided 400 acre site, 9 kilometres inland…

- Imagine also that your state has no stake in the sale of its own gas, that all costs of development are off-writable against tax(25%) and that the state(Irish Citizens) will have to buy back the gas at full market value……….

- Now imagine that the pipeline, containing raw odourless gas at hazardous pressure, is to follow a route composed almost entirely of bog land, is buried just 1.2 m underground, passing as close as 40 m to dwellings and crossing under public roads a two points………..

- Imagine that the company involved in this, begin to mark out the route and commences laying out sections of the pipeline, without having obtained the correct licences & consents……

- Then imagine that as a landowner & resident along the route, with none of your questions and concerns being addressed, you protest your right to know more about the project, only to be arrested and put into jail, where you are left for 3 months……..

- You have undertaken legal challenges to this project, but by the time they come up, everything could already be build. Imagine all of this, and think, what would you do?
YOU TAKE ACTION.

Now imagine you are the government and minister that is promoting Ireland abroad to oil and gas companies as a great place to do business? Imagine that you are personally accountable for the success or failure of this multi-million project, and that it’s success is essential for Ireland current and future energy needs? What are you willing to do? The Irish government is willing to send out it’s own police force to baton charge it’s own citizens in order to cover up the many political and planning mistakes in this project.

WEEKEND MEETING IN MAYO
At the weekend I travelled to Co. Mayo, on foot of an informal meeting of some people in the Dingle area concerned at the unfolding events in the Corrib Gas saga.

While there I had the opportunity to witness first hand what is happening in the area. The politicians tell us that safety is being reviewed and that the Corrib Gas project will go ahead. The locals will tell you that the any other route options will run into serious trouble. They will tell you that there are many legal & planning issues still outstanding: a proper EPA licence for the terminal; the Special Area of Conservation the pipe passes through.

At the back of Healy’s pub in Glenamoy, I observed a special meeting, called by the Rossport Group, of supporters from all over the country: Cork, Waterford, Clare, Donegal, Dublin, Limerick, Kerry, Derry, Belfast, Galway….

And then you learn more…. I heard the SIPTU representative of Irish Oil Workers Pádraig Campbell say that the amount of oil and gas finds have been kept quiet for years and that this pipeline and processing plant is now to be the gateway terminal for future explorations along the entire West coast of Ireland.

The leader of Norway’s Oil Workers also sat in on the meeting. (Norway’s Statoil have a 36% share in the project) He said he would be bringing back news of the campaign to Statoil and the Norwegian government.

Having spent 2 days talking to people here in Rossport, I come to the following conclusions: Stuck in their belief in private business at all costs, this government is in the process of giving away the property of Irish people for nothing. In the process, this same government, think nothing of the environmental and civil rights of the local community directly effected by this project, and are imposing a version of martial law here to squash their legitimate concerns.

HEARTBEAT
A place that some might class as remote and marginal, the people of Rossport are now the heartbeat of political consciousness in Ireland. I have been convinced and I urge your readers to come here or find out for themselves. Despite all the counter-arguments, this IS about Irish Natural Resources, and this is about basic democratic rights. This is about fundamental democracy in Ireland, and the outcome will affect the lives and pockets of all Irish people for generations to come.

I will be recommending to my fellow citizens of the Dingle area that we try to support these people in any way we can.