Please note that we did not catch the names of all the speakers, so apologies for the omissions made.
Maura Harrington noted that Mayo County Council granted planning permission to Shell for its onshore processing plant at Erris. The planning authority An Bord Pleanála overturned the decision. After this, however, in July 2003, Fianna Fáil, the majority party in Government, organized a meeting in Belmullet at which Galway TDs and Government Ministers Éamon Ó Cuí­v and Frank Fahey were prominent. Notably absent, however, were the local Fianna Fáil representatives. This meeting was immediately publicized by the Government and media as a rally in support of the Corrib scheme and hence a demonstration that the local residents supported it. This, however, was not so: many of the groups that attended, such as local inshore fishermen, were tricked into believing that they were going to a meeting at which their own concerns would be addressed.

Patrick Campbell pointed out that the much-touted "72 conditions" held up by the Government as evidence of the stringent requirements being imposed on Shell and Statoil were in effect meaningless, since the oil companies themselves monitor their own adherence to any conditions, and there is no independent verification of whether or not they in fact do so. Further, several of the trucks which are hauling peat away from the hill where the planned gas processing station is to be built have run off the road and been wrecked, as predicted by opponents of the scheme. There is no precedent in the world for a raw gas refinery being built in a populated area; neither is there precedent for a raw gas pipeline being laid across a protected beach and estuary (and not once but twice). Shell has already been shown to be prepared to engage in dishonesty and criminality to further its aims, such as the pretence of "escalating reserves" in Nigeria that did not exist. Even so, Shell won a temporary injunction against the seven landowners remaining who are refusing Shell access to their land despite the fact that the High Court Judge refused to read any of the technical documentation presented in the case for the defence, and instead appealed to considerations such as the amount of money Shell had spent, and "we can always tear the pipeline up again".

The State has no health and safety inspectors on site. The Health and Safety Authority defends this by claiming that it has "no ability to deal with" a high pressure gas pipeline such as that which will supply gas from the Corrib field to the onshore processing plant. The State's refusal to provide safety monitoring goes against both the Government's own assertions that high-pressure gas pipelines are perfectly safe, and precedents such as the explosion of just such a pipeline underneath a US theme park, in which two teenagers were killed. In contradiction of the Irish State's own approach, Shell, who happen to own this pipeline also, were fined $15 million.

Padraig Campbell of the SIPTU Offshore Workers Committee offered a startling summary of the background to the Corrib scheme, and to such stark facts as that oil companies are the sole source of information on gas and oil deposits to the State. According to his own information, the State has been consistently, and willingly, misled about the size of gas and oil deposits off the Irish coast: the deposits off the Irish coast is huge. In the 1970's, the State had a 50% share with oil companies granted drilling licenses. During the 1980s, however, the line from the oil companies was that Irish taxes were too high to allow them to drill in Irish waters, despite the world-wide slump in oil prices and the existence of similar tax regimes in other countries. But from 1985, we find in Dáil records a certain Ray Burke lobbying on behalf of oil companies. In September 1987, as Minister, he went against the advice of his own Departmental Secretary and met with delegations from oil companies. The immediate result of this meeting was that royalties from oil exploration were done away with, and incentives introduced. But this was not all. In 1992, Finance Minister Bertie Ahern, in his Finance Act, gave oil companies the best deal they had anywhere in the world: a 25% tax rate (the average was 40-50%), no State share in any well, no royalties, 20-year licenses (the average being 1-3 years), and finally, the provision that oil companies could write off their expenses from as far back as 25 years - wherever in the world those expenses were accrued. Oil companies have total freedom to decide whether they report a finding or not, and what type of system they use. The main base for the Corrib operation will be in Scotland, yet any expenses can be offset against tax in Ireland. The contrast with Norway�s own provisions could not be more telling: a 78% tax rate, 8% royalties, and a fund (now standing at KR800 billion) which oil companies are required to pay into against the future exhaustion of Norway's mineral wealth. Ireland stands to gain practically nothing from the Corrib operation; on the contrary, it will be servicing its expenses. Shell's representatives are currently trespassing on land belonging to residents of Erris, claiming that they have the authority to do so and do not have to provide proof of that authority.

Trinity College professor of material physics, Werner Blau, said that the pressure of raw gas at the point where it enters the processing plant would be comparable to the expansion pressure of the bombs at Omagh or Oklahoma City. The "Risk Assessment" provided by Shell and accepted by the Irish Government uses a British standard, based on more favourable British data rather than US or global data, instead of the European standard used in Ireland which takes account of a wide range of factors excluded from the British standard. The soil data used are also all British. The excuse cited for siting the processing plant on land is that it would be "too risky" for the workers to process it at sea: hence its siting in a populated area. The Government claims that the "safe distance" from the high pressure pipeline is 75 metres: the actual blast radius at that pressure is in the region of 600 metres. The danger not only comes from the raw gas: the pipeline will be a complex consisting of high-power electric cables and methanol, a highly volatile liquid which will also be stored in large quantities at the plant.

Finally, it was made clear that the Minister, Frank Hayes, has taken the 9 km area of Erris where the project is underway under his personal authority: the normal planning process has been suspended, the Minister having decreed that it is not necessary in this area; the Gardaí­ act at Shell's behest to arrest or harass local opposition; and Shell has been given the equivalent of State powers, including the right to impose Compulsory Purchase Orders.

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