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150 Gardai to move TBM 5km; Mayo County Council begin cover-up

category mayo | miscellaneous | news report author Saturday August 04, 2012 13:45author by resting camper Report this post to the editors

An account of Friday's events on the day the tunnel boring machine was moved.

As those following the story will no doubt have heard by now, the TBM was moved yesterday.

Aware that something was going to happen, campaigners spent the night at Glenamoy sleeping in cars and vans, aware that something was going to happen. Two slept under the bridge. Localyil residents nearby told us how the road had sunk 4 inches in the last few days, while other parts were ruined from the exceptional traffic. We're sure the Council will not be so quick to do those repairs...

At 4am, gardai began to swarm into the area. 150 IRMS security also marched up the road. We ran up, but the sheer weight of numbers kept us back. Ten managed to get into the field on the side where the truck was listing. Suddenly, 40 IRMS came in and set up a fence. Diggers and trucks of stone came in and for the next ten hours, Shell filled in ditches and built up a road around the collapsed bank. The crane plan had been abandoned and its seemed the field owner had given permission. Thus, without warning the crossroads were closed to all traffic, causing chaos yet again. Shell only later offered its usual bland, 'sorry for the inconvenience' shite.

Rumour is it that the crane stopped the previous day simply turned around and went home after being stopped. And that Shell were desperately trying to find a replacement – offering 15K for a crane driver alone to do the job, and another 50K for a crane itself.

Those in the field, having been given directions to go there when the road was being cleared were told they were being detained there and physically prevented from leaving by gardai. After watching the spectacle close up for a couple of hours, they made their way through other fields to get out.

Maura Harrington's van was stopped at Bellinaboy by Gardai and had its back window deliberately smashed by Sgt Dermot Butler, the well known bully of the public order unit – his former partner now has a restraining order against them, but in the dubious ranks of Mayo's police, that probably puts him in line for a promotion. Maura was arrested and charged, though subsequently released and the van returned in what was a blatant occasion of preventative detention.

Another campaigner also had their car impounded; while a third person was told their van could only leave the area if a garda drove it back to camp. There was quite a pattern were known protesters were being denied right of passage along the road, while other were stopped outright or repeatedly harassed and searched. Those walking had their own personal garda escort, and every fifty meters from Glenamoy to Bellinaboy there was at least one garda standing – someone counted them and the total there alone came to 80. We heard of checkpoints set up as far as Bangor Erris.

Butler continued his customary incivility when a local resident went to Belmullet garda station to have his tax return signed – Butler opened the hatch and said I'm not signing that for the likes of you, before slamming the hatch shut.

Betty Schults, a well known local campaigner, and others were following the trail of who had given permission for the TBM trucks to go up to Glenamoy in the first place. Having been told that documentation was at the Castlebar headquarters of Mayo County Council, she made the 100km round trip only to receive a phonecall telling her that it was missing from the file just as she arrived.

At 2pm we had news the TBM was moving so we headed down to Ballyscelly junction to witness it. Vehicles were backed up all along it, one local resident unable to get to her elderly mother who was at home alone. As usual, gardai were happy to block the road entirely for Shell, causing massive disruption as even the backroads were closed off this time.

The twitchiness of An Gardai Síochána was apparent. They were desperate to see this go off without any hitches. As the tunnel boring machine came up the road, 38 gardai walking in front of the truck alone. IRMS security were also floating around. With such numbers there was little that could be done. Punctuating all this was a thunderstorm right overhead.

The subject of such massive operation, which underlines its importance, it was clear that the TBM would be delivered back to Bellinaboy. Yet for five days it was stuck at Glenamoy, a national news story and galvinizing the surrounding communities. Shell was at the centre of the embarrassment; An Gardai Síochána left red-faced, their ability to respond reduced to simple thuggery; and the blatant criminal collusion of Mayo County Council becoming apparent once more. Ironic, as Friday was elven years to the very day that Mayo County Council signed their first agreement with Shell.

As we sat in a local pub, swapping stories of the week, it was clear that there is hardly a local who does not believe Mayo county manager, Peter Hynes, has not sold his soul to Shell. The question is for how much. Certainly he does not have the trust or respect of anyone up here.

The battle is not over yet. The TBM has not got to where it is meant to, Aghoos. Before that can happen, the road at Ballyscelly junction has to be built up so it can turn. More pieces of it have still to arrive. Aghoos is not yet ready for it either, being plagued by flooding, while the weight of the TBM is not going to do the fracturing ground at Bellinaboy refinery any good either.

Shell have shot themselves in the foot several times; not only a huge embarrassment that made national headlines, it showed the ongoing strength of resistance coming from the community here. As we sat in the pub last night we could hear the buzz of a people fighting back.

As ever the camp is open to all who want to come and support, though you might have to mind the moat and drawbridge...

Cartoon in Irish News on the story - http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v247/notanumber/irish...6.jpg

author by Mick Stuartpublication date Sat Aug 04, 2012 23:33author address author phone Report this post to the editors

Little or zero coverage in the MSM especially radio stations, the medium through which most people get news. No Surprise there at all,

Plundering the land to plunder our gas resources (via Fionula?) is most certainly A Story, but it is well understood by activists why it is the case that the story is buried.

Meanwhile the population plods on blissfully unaware of facts on the ground.

Is there no methodology like for example advertising the websites with this info and plastering the streets of our cities on an ongoing basis with them ? ? ?

The resource garb is surely an attention catcher? and this resource grab campaign is as much an Information War (or misinformation, more accurately) as anything else.

Solidarity from the one of the almost 2 Million population in the Capital City.

I put the above questions with total respect to our long suffering friends in Rossport and their gallant allies in the struggle.

author by Donalopublication date Sat Aug 04, 2012 23:57author address author phone Report this post to the editors

The news reports on Indymedia from Rossport Solidarity Camp for the past week have been absolutely vital.
No mainstream media outlet has reported the huge Garda operation in support of Shell in any detail.
The suspicious collaboration of Mayo County Council management has gone more or less unreported - except here.
The entire country continues to sleepwalk through the Corrib tyranny - but more than a few are waking up now.
Keep up the vitally important work of telling the truth of what's going on in Erris.

author by Margaret Larkinpublication date Sun Aug 05, 2012 22:15author address author phone Report this post to the editors

As Rossport is so isolated in every sense of the word, information about what is happenning appears to me to be absolutley essential. The above posters are right in their points about the mainstream media and how they have buried the issue.

In the late 1960s how nationalists were treated in the North of Ireland on their own streets was beamed around the world thanks to an RTE camera man being present. In Rossport there is no RTE or they have been, in the main, neutred, but there is the INTERNET, not as accessible as TV but it can help tilt the scales IF people know about the relevant sites.

Last year I saw some stickers about the oil and gas giveaway and a website address on the stickers around Dublin, but I have seen none at all in a long time.

Should this not be done frequently and where big numbers of people pass by ? Or is that a silly little notion held by an uneducated person ? But I seem to have some company with my little notion as from points made above ?

author by Sharon. - Individual.publication date Sun Aug 05, 2012 23:38author address author phone Report this post to the editors

Hi !
A Shell To Sea solidarity demonstration with the Rossport community will be held tomorrow (Monday 6th August 2012) at 1pm (One pm) at the Spire in O'Connell Street , Dublin.
If you can't make it yourself (and apologises for the late notice) please pass this message on to others.
Thanks,
Sharon.

Shell : a wolf in sheeps clothing - Dublin demo on Monday 6th August 2012 , 1pm at the Spire.
Shell : a wolf in sheeps clothing - Dublin demo on Monday 6th August 2012 , 1pm at the Spire.

author by Olaf the Green - Viking rejectpublication date Mon Aug 06, 2012 00:55author address author phone Report this post to the editors

Shell has 45% of the Corrib Operation. Statoil has 36.5%. That is only EIGHT AND A HALF PER CENT less than Shell. Vermillion has the remaining 18.5%. Statoil's Joh Conroy, a Mayo native, is in overall charge of the whole operation. Shell don't really give a shite about any negative publicity. After all they have colluded with State murderers in Nigeria and have been world wide polluters. But the Norwegian people who are 70% owners of Statoil DO give a major shite about what is being done in their name in Ireland. So, enroute to the worn path to Shell's HQ after the rally the march organisers might ...just might...consider detouring to the Norwegian Embassy in Molesworth Street. Sure why not a daily picket at the Embassy?...Oh, and by the way...contact the Norwegian media. WAKE UP S2S and focus !!!!

author by opus diablos - the regressive hypocrite partypublication date Mon Aug 06, 2012 09:42author address author phone Report this post to the editors

Shell and Statoil(Topaz?) are just doing what it says on their corporate tins. I believe Pet Rabbitte is Minister for Newspeak and Energy and Natural Resources..himself and Labour should be the targets.
After all, their labels say they were elected to represent the interests of the Irish people, while Shell and Statoil are legally obliged to maximise the interests of their shareholders.
Either Rabbitte or RTE, our somnolent 'public service' broadcaster, are the targets should get the focus if the democratic deficit is to tackled.

Time to go Rabbitte huntin...??

author by Mick Stuartpublication date Mon Aug 06, 2012 22:21author address author phone Report this post to the editors

As it is Shell and the State have this particular Information War sown up and put to bed and everyone has by and large, forgotten about the issue.

I agree with Viking that Shell don't give a fiddlers about bad publicity but the publicity on the websites should be advertised on the streets as the objective should be to get the population thinking and talking.

Imagine 200 lamposts in Ballyfermot (population 35 000) covered in oil and gas giveaway stickers with the web addresses, it actually might get people talking and maybe looking and then maybe doing something.

Surely we don't need a degree from a university to get this basic, common sense idea.

author by W. Finnertypublication date Tue Aug 07, 2012 07:07author address author phone Report this post to the editors

" All natural resources, including the air and all forms of potential energy, within the jurisdiction of the Parliament and Government established by this Constitution and all royalties and franchises within that jurisdiction belong to the State subject to all estates and interests therein for the time being lawfully vested in any person or body." (Article 10.1 of the Constitution of the Republic of Ireland, copied from: http://www.constitution.org/cons/ireland/constitution_i...n.htm )

There is nothing in Article 10.1 (reproduced above in full) of Bunreacht na hEireann (the written Constitution of the Republic of Ireland) which gives our Government (Executive, Legislative, and/or Judicial) the authority to give away our untapped oil and gas resources, which are estimated to be worth 5.4 trillion Euros. (For more on this estimated value please see list at at: http://tinyurl.com/c4ygb4y)

It's just another example of "government wrongdoing" by ALL (or almost all) of the hundreds of members of the Republic of Ireland Governments (Executive, Legislative, and Judicial) of recent decades -- TDs, Senators, Judges, Presidents, and others closely involved (such as the "non-judicial" members of our legal profession for example) -- who have unlawfully, and indeed treasonously, helped to create, enforce, and sustain UNCONSTITUTIONAL legislation (i.e. invalid and bogus law) in the Republic of Ireland during the period in question.

More information on the subject of Bunreacht na hEireann, Article 10.1, and the great unconstitutional and unlawful giveaway of our oil and gas resources, can be found via the following link: http://tinyurl.com/d8fx95v

Related Link:
http://www.humanrightsireland.com/

author by W. Finnertypublication date Wed Aug 08, 2012 18:59author address author phone Report this post to the editors

With the "Great Giveaway" of our oil and gas resources in mind, among other things, the following excerpt written by Thomas Jefferson (3rd President of the Republic of the United States of America) formed part of an e-mail sent earlier today to Republic of Ireland Chief Justice Susan Denham:

"At the establishment of our constitutions, the judiciary bodies were supposed to be the most helpless and harmless members of the government. Experience, however, soon showed in what way they were to become the most dangerous; that the insufficiency of the means provided for their removal gave them a freehold and irresponsibility in office; that their decisions, seeming to concern individual suitors only, pass silent and unheeded by the public at large; that these decisions, nevertheless, become law by precedent, sapping, by little and little, the foundations of the constitution, and working its change by construction, before any one has perceived that that invisible and helpless worm has been busily employed in consuming its substance. In truth, man is not made to be trusted for life, if secured against all liability to account."

The above piece is from a letter sent by Thomas Jefferson, himself a highly accomplished and respected member of the legal profession, to Monsieur A. Coray on October 31st 1823. (The above quote of his has been copied from: http://quotationsbook.com/quote/45578/)

Why, I wonder, are so many people -- in the Republic of the United States of America, and in the Republic of Ireland -- STILL, 190 years or so later, ignoring Thomas Jefferson's exceptionally valuable warning?

The insidious and menacing slide from constitutionalism to totalitarianism in both jurisdictions, already far advanced, can only get worse (in my opinion) for as long as these warnings by Thomas Jefferson continue to be ignored.

The full text of today's e-mail to Chief Justice Susan Denham, copied to several of her legal profession colleagues, and titled "Arrogantly sapping by little and little the foundations of the constitution", can be viewed at:
http://www.humanrightsireland.com/ChiefJusticeSusanDenh...l.htm

Related Link:
http://www.europeancourtofhumanrightswilliamfinnerty.com/

author by W. Finnertypublication date Thu Aug 09, 2012 08:16author address author phone Report this post to the editors

"In what appears (to me) to be a straightforward violation of Article 10 of our written Constitution (Bunreacht na hEireann), the Republic of Ireland's natural oil and gas resources are STILL going to be given away it seems; while, at the same time, extremely deep cuts in public spending -- of an unprecedented level -- are being proposed in order to pay for bailing out the bankers, who, as a result of their own free choices, and without any consultation whatsoever with the people of the Republic of Ireland, have collectively -- and possibly deliberately for all we know? -- built up an enormous mountain of gambling debts (using the "derivatives" weapon of financial mass destruction) around the world, the exact size of which nobody really seems to know."

The above excerpt is from a comment dated December 6th 2010 at: http://www.indymedia.ie/article/98299#comment275964

Two other excerpts from the same comment:

1) "IRELAND has EUR 5.4 trillion of oil lying off the west coast, it was revealed yesterday (i.e. January 30th 2009)": Please see at
http://www.indymedia.ie/article/90909

2) "SITTING ON A (5.4 TRILLION EUROS) FORTUNE":
http://www.istockanalyst.com/article/viewiStockNews/art...97336

Related Link:
http://www.humanrightsireland.com/CelticParty/6December...l.htm

author by W. Finnertypublication date Thu Aug 09, 2012 08:56author address author phone Report this post to the editors

The number 2 link at the Thu Aug 09, 2012 08:16 comment is faulty.

However, the following one (just below) does work:
2) "SITTING ON A (5.4 TRILLION EUROS) FORTUNE":
http://www.istockanalyst.com/article/viewiStockNews/art...97336

Afterthought:

Those not familiar with the "financial weapons of mass destruction" in the bankers "derivatives family", also referred to in the Thu Aug 09, 2012 08:16 comment, can find out more about them via the following www link: http://tinyurl.com/bo7pk3n

Related Link:
http://www.humanrightsireland.com/

author by W. Finnertypublication date Thu Aug 09, 2012 10:16author address author phone Report this post to the editors

The excerpts below are from a Global Research Article dated August 5th 2012, which is titled:

"The Ascendancy of a Criminal Financial Elite".

"An economist of impeccable credentials, James Henry, former chief economist at the prestigious consulting firm McKinsey & Company, has researched and documented tax evasion. He found that the super-wealthy and their families have as much as $32 trillion (USD) of hidden assets in offshore tax havens, representing up to $280 billion in lost income tax revenue! This study excluded such non-financial assets as real estate, precious metals, jewels, yachts, race horses, luxury vehicles and so on. Of the $32 trillion in hidden assets, $23 trillion is held by the super-rich of North America and Europe ."

"A recent report by a United Nations Special Committee on Money Laundering found that US and European banks laundered over $300 billion a year, including $30 billion just from the Mexican drug cartels."

"The ascendancy of a criminal financial elite and its complicit, accommodating state has led to the breakdown of law and order, the degradation and discrediting of the entire regulatory network and judicial system (Republic of Ireland citizens should NOTE VERY CAREFULLY and VERY WELL!!). This has led to a national system of ‘unequal injustice’ where critical citizens are prosecuted for exercising their constitutional rights while criminal elites operate with impunity. The harshest enforcement of police state fiats are applied against hundreds of thousands of immigrants, Muslims and human rights activists, while financial swindlers are courted at Presidential campaign fund raisers."

The full text of the Article can be viewed at:
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=32220

Related Link (titled "Aiding and abetting government crime with impunity":
http://www.humanrightsireland.com/ECFR/31July2012/Email.htm

author by Tpublication date Fri Aug 10, 2012 10:54author address author phone Report this post to the editors

Its amazing that the state finds the money to pay overtime to 150 Garda to move an object stuck in the mud belonging to a private company but at the same time there are cutbacks in health, education, community services and so on. This clearly shows where the priorities lie.

By the time the ECB/IMF is finished with this country every service will be stripped bare and privatised and all that will remain are the security forces, courts and jail to make sure private corporations can plunder our resources and push people out of the way, criminalise and jail anyone who objects to this corporate takeover of society.

author by Chinopublication date Fri Aug 10, 2012 11:34author address author phone Report this post to the editors

"By the time the ECB/IMF is finished with this country every service will be stripped bare and privatised and all that will remain are the security forces, courts and jail "

Prisons will be privatised too! See the USA for details. More people in Jail per capita than any other country in the world including China.. People serve custodial sentences for the most minor infractions. Corrupt Judges help keep the quotas up. There is big money in prisons.

The real deterrent in prisons is not the custodial sentence but what the other prisoners will do to you. The justice system only sentence you to have your liberty taken away but in practice this is the least of your problems. The so called Justice system turns a blind eye to the violence, rape and other things. These are the real deterrent. But suffering these abuses is not actually part of your sentence. And the judges know this. That is the real crime.

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