Madam, – The controversial 10-metre section of Shell’s pipeline is crucial because it combines several fundamental breaches relating to the current pipeline-route planning permission application.
Not least among these arises from Bord Pleanála’s decisive ruling last November that this section was wrongly omitted from that application. This alone should render the application null and void. Instead Bord Pleanála has acquiesced in it being added in retrospectively, despite specific restriction in the Strategic Infrastructure Act in that regard.
Confusion about this section had been brought dramatically to the attention of Bord Pleanála at commencement of the oral hearing in May 2009 and a ruling was rightfully demanded then, yet it was six months before the ruling was eventually given in November. In the intervening time the controversial section of pipeline was laid, and so the current impasse was created. In effect, that section of pipeline is illegal and there is no means by which it can be made legal retrospectively under the current application.
There is a further and darker twist to all of this in that it was clear to Shell at all times that this section would require planning permission. Equally, it was clear to Shell that if pipeline were laid in this section it could not then be included in the current pipeline-route application.
Nevertheless Shell went ahead and obtained a separate permission from Minister for Energy Eamon Ryan’s department under a 2002 Ministerial Consent, despite Shell having given a High Court undertaking in 2007 to relinquish entitlement to this consent.
Additionally it was known to all concerned that the validity of this consent was under challenge in the High Court since 2007.
Shell put its current application at risk by laying this section of pipeline and now seeks to be bailed out. This is an all too familiar story in our times. Ministers Ryan and O’Cuiv have told protesters repeatedly that if they don’t want it they can challenge it in the courts, knowing that every such challenge costs tens if not hundreds of thousands of euro and months or years to conclude.
The current shocking state of our economy and country bears grievous testimony to such insidious disregard by Government regulatory agencies for blatant breaches of public safeguards.
We who have witnessed such patterns of “soft touch” regulation over many years in regard to Corrib can bear first-hand witness to its corrosive impact on society, community and family life in particular.
We have never sought other than even-handed impartial regulation and we have been failed in this repeatedly, notwithstanding many excellent officials endeavouring to uphold required standards. – Yours, etc,