Minister for the Marine and Natural Resources Noel Dempsey has released details of consents given for work on the Shell Corrib gas onshore pipeline. Lorna Siggins, Marine Correspondent, reports.
However, Mayo TD Dr Jerry Cowley criticised the fact that the consents do not cover installation work carried out for Shell on parts of the pipeline. Sections of pipeline have been assembled and welded at Rossport, Co Mayo, as reported in The Irish Times this week.
Dr Cowley also queried the stipulation in one of the consents that a safety zone of at least 500 metres be established around a sub-sea installation. "Why is it that the onshore pipeline will be running at close as 70 metres to a private house," he said last night.
Shell E&P Ireland said last night that all works undertaken had been "authorised by the relevant consents granted to date" and the company "has not, nor does not intend to, carry out any work in advance of the required ministerial consent".
The Department of Marine and Natural Resources said that two of its officials inspected the work on the site on Tuesday and are to report back to the Minister.
Labour Party leader Pat Rabbitte has called on the Minister to make a full statement to the courts on the true facts surrounding the pipeline construction, and said he is "seriously disturbed" about the manner in which court orders against the five Mayo residents in prison were obtained.
"Neither construction nor installation of the pipeline by Shell were permissible. Yet the company somehow managed to get a court order restraining others from interfering with what would in fact have been unlawful acts on its part. On those facts alone, it seems to us that the original order should be set aside if it was obtained in error or without the full facts being given to the High Court," Mr Rabbitte said yesterday after a meeting with the men in Cloverhill prison.
Mr Rabbitte was invited to meet Shell representatives in Dublin yesterday.
The consents published yesterday related to phases 1, 2, 3a and 6 of the offshore pipeline, dating from May 2002 to June 2005. Phase one relates to nearshore trench construction from the high water mark westwards for approximately 1,200 metres along the pipeline route. Phase 2, issued in June 2002, relates to operations at the landfall site for the onshore pipeline from the high water mark through the beach cliff and eastwards for some 200 metres along the pipeline route.
Phase 3a, issued in July 2002, defines approved preparatory works for the onshore pipeline and umbilical, namely: survey and set out; erection of right of way fencing; making trial holes; preparation of temporary access points and roads; construction of temporary compounds along the proposed onshore route, includ- ing estuary crossings. Point 4 of the phase 3a approval, dated July 9th, 2002, states that "no phase 3 works apart from preparatory works specified in this approval are to be carried out without further specific approval".
The fifth consent issued on March 31st of this year allows Shell to install temporarily sheet pipes along both sides of the pipeline trench for access and "future excavation". The sixth consent issued in June of this year relates to offshore manifold and wellhead protection structures.
The Shell to Sea campaign has planned a national day of action for tomorrow.