Minister for the Marine Noel Dempsey is to hold a two-day public hearing on the Corrib gas onshore pipeline in north Mayo next month.
The Minister's Corrib technical advisory group is also inviting written submissions which can be made to Advantica, the company appointed to carry out the safety review of the upstream onshore pipeline.
Advantica, which has carried out work for Shell, is a sister company of utility company Transco, fined €22 million last month over health and safety breaches which claimed four lives in a gas blast in Scotland in December 1999.
The Shell to Sea campaign has questioned the usefulness of a limited hearing, which, it says, is an attempt by the Minister to give the "illusion" of consultation.
Not only were the review's terms of reference too narrow, but the people of Rossport had been systematically denied proper consultation for the last five years, Dr Mark Garavan of the Shell to Sea campaign said.
The continued imprisonment of five men opposed to the pipeline represented a form of human rights abuse akin to a "Guantanamo Bay" situation in Ireland, Dr Garavan said. The Government and its political allies would be better advised to suspend the Corrib gas project, pending a full review and a reconfigured plan.
"The Corrib gas project . . . died the instant minister for the marine Frank Fahey signed without local 'consultation' the compulsory acquisition orders that abandoned the people of Rossport to the mercy of Shell and Statoil," Dr Garavan added.
The campaign has also criticised the decision to send a heavy Garda presence to north Mayo yesterday to escort the consultants and representatives of the advisory group on a fact-finding visit to Erris.
The campaign had already agreed to co-operate fully with the consultants and with the Minister's group, Dr Garavan said.
A spokeswoman for the Minister said the Garda escort was arranged in case there were difficulties with access to the Shell sites. Shell had already reported difficulties in relation to dismantling the illegally welded section of pipeline, she claimed. However, the Shell to Sea campaign has reiterated that it has no difficulty with access for this purpose, but was never formally approached by the company.
The public hearing will be held locally in late October and will be chaired by John Gallagher SC.
