Madam, - On Tuesday, Shell to Sea campaigner Maura Harrington began a hunger strike to coincide with the arrival of the Solitaire, the world's largest pipe-laying vessel, in Broadhaven Bay. In a letter, she placed her life in the hands of the master of the Solitaire. Her hunger strike, she vowed, will end in one of two ways - either with the departure of the Solitaire from Irish territorial waters or with her death.
This radical and seemingly bizarre twist in one of the longest campaigns in modern Ireland throws up many questions about the very nature of the Irish nation.
The dispute in Mayo has been one in which State agencies, including local and central Government, the planning authorities, the parks and wildlife service and the Garda have continually supported and protected the interests of large, multinational companies with little regard for civil, political and human rights.
The recent involvement of the Navy and Interpol are further evidence of the lengths to which the State will go to ensure that corporate interests are placed above the rights of local communities. The costs of the Garda operation will have reached €20 million in taxpayers' money by Christmas. For the first time in the history of the Irish State, a Navy gunboat has been deployed in response to a civilian campaign.
Given the extremes to which the Irish Government has gone to crush the Shell to Sea campaign, many people may assume that the State itself and we, its citizens, are set to lose invaluable resources and jobs if this campaign is not stopped in its tracks. We are led to believe that the protesters are Luddites. These notions are groundless. According to the Department of Marine and Natural Resources, profits for multinational companies from Irish gas will run to over €700 billion and gas finds will be sold on the international market, with no guarantee of domestic supply. With international prices of oil and gas soaring, many governments around the world are looking for a larger share of the profits while the Irish Government continues to charge low taxes which can simply be written off against the costs of production.
The campaign in Rossport has at its heart concerns regarding the health and safety of the community. The desperate action of a single brave woman in Mayo exposes a nation that has gone rotten at the core and where the democratic ideals of the Constitution lie in tatters. But my sincere hope is that the Government will listen to the voice of Maura Harrington and all that her heartfelt plea represents before it is too late. - Yours, etc,
PAULA LEONARD, Killea, Co Donegal.