Dublin Shell to Sea

The jailing of the Rossport Five in 2005 for refusing to obey a court order sought by Shell E&P (Ireland) Ltd. thrust the Corrib Gas dispute into the international spotlight, and led to a campaign of mass civil disobedience by the local community. This campaign, supported by Shell to Sea groups from all around Ireland, shut down all works in Rossport and on the refinery site for more than a year, while Shell and the other oil companies in the consortium refused to consider residents’ demands for a redesign of the project. Three hundred Gardaí broke this stalemate in October 2006 with the use of unprecedented physical force, as documented in the report of the human rights group Global Community Monitor, which visited Erris in 2007. The delegation, from the Netherlands, the USA and South Africa, held public hearings, observed protests and met with Gardaí and members of the community. Their findings included the following:²⁰

‘There is evidence from videos of youth, women and the elderly being pushed and beaten by Gardaí without provocation. Even high-ranking officers were personally involved in beating protestors.’

‘Emergency response and medical treatment to injured protestors were denied and delayed by Gardaí without justification.’

‘There is evidence of the Gardaí verbally threatening people without cause, which appeared to incite violence rather than diffuse it.’

‘Protestors were followed and confronted by Gardaí when they were about the community on their private matters.’

‘The community has been active in submitting complaints to the necessary authorities about the issues they have with the Gardaí, but to our knowledge none of these cases have been taken forward. Thus people have lost faith in the system, and have stopped submitting complaints.’

These events marked the beginning of a period of extraordinary policing in the Erris area, which is still ongoing, and has been detrimental to the standing of An Garda Siochána in the community. This remote rural area has at times been occupied by hundreds of Gardaí, supported by armed Navy vessels and air corps planes, at an estimated cost of millions of euro to the taxpayer.

Shell’s private security contractors, IRMS Security, are also constantly present, at times in large numbers, in the community. They have engaged in disturbing surveillance operations against local people, filming children as they undress on the beach and repeatedly aiming cameras into the kitchen of the home of a person who had objected to the pipeline.²¹ IRMS staff have posted videos to YouTube, celebrating their late night surveillance and their taunting behaviour towards local residents as they try to go about their daily lives.²²

In April 2009, International Goldman Prize winner Willie Corduff, one of the original ‘Rossport Five’, was beaten by a group of men wearing balaclavas and dark clothing while he was peacefully blocking work on a Shell site. The site was heavily staffed by IRMS security that night. Gardaí were present when he was removed from the site to hospital. Despite the fact that his injuries were severe enough to require hospitalisation – his hospital record stated that he had been ‘kicked all over the body and had LOC (Loss Of Consciousness)... headaches, nausea and vomiting’ – the following morning, Gardaí released reports to the media implying that he was not injured, but had been ‘feeling unwell’²³. To date, no one has been arrested in relation to Mr. Corduff’s beating, in contrast with the arrests of dozens of campaigners. Various international organisations and individuals, including Archbishop Desmond Tutu have called for an investigation into the beating of Willie Corduff but so far the authorities have remained silent.

In June 2009, the boat of local fisherman Pat O’Donnell was sunk in the middle of the night. This incident marked the most serious of the attacks to date on Shell to Sea campaigners. O’Donnell and his son had repeatedly been arrested while fishing in the area and then released without charge. They had refused to accept financial compensation from Shell, opting instead to maintain their existing constitutional right to fish in the area. Their constant presence in Broadhaven Bay was a persistent nuisance for Shell and the Gardaí. O’Donnell reported that his boat was boarded by a group of men wearing wetsuits who held him and his crew member at gunpoint while they sank the boat, giving them only minutes to launch their life raft.

Mr. O’Donnell lost his boat, for which he will not receive insurance payments, as the sinking is regarded as an ‘act of terrorism’. He has made statements to the Gardaí but as in the case of Mr. Corduff, no arrests have been made, with the Gardaí instead issuing statements to the media attempting to undermine Mr O’Donnell’s credibility. In addition to these outstanding incidents, hundreds of other incidents have occurred in which people’s rights and physical integrity have been breached. As just one example, in 2007, a male Garda was captured on video punching a woman with full force into the stomach.²⁴ Over 100 complaints have been submitted to the Garda Ombudsman Commission, but these represent only a minority of the incidents which have taken place.

Many local residents believe that the judicial system, too, has been abused in order to intimidate residents who object or protest, to remove them from Rossport at critical junctures, and to exhaust their time, energy and money. Some individuals are charged repeatedly with minor offences; others receive serious criminal charges for minor public order offences, and leading campaigners have been imprisoned at strategic times, such as during the presence of the pipe-laying ship, the Solitaire, in 2009.

Thus, amongst the less quantifiable costs of the Corrib Gas Project are the harrowing stresses already suffered by those who have been humiliated and abused, the destruction of trust in the Irish State’s democratic processes, the damage done to the international image of the State and to the standing of An Garda Siochána.

For the most part, even the most serious and well-documented human rights abuses have gone unpunished. In November 2009 however, the Garda Ombudsman Commission recommended that disciplinary action be taken against a senior member of An Garda Siochána over the handling of a June 2007 protest in which some 20 civilians and two Gardaí were injured.²⁶ In this incident, a digger with lowered bucket had been used as a battering ram and driven through a crowd of campaigners, with the support of the Gardaí.

‘The lesson we’ve learned from the Ogoni is not to give in, no matter how impossible it seems, no matter what the odds.’
Terence Conway, Shell to Sea

 From the Dublin Shell to Sea information pack - Download a PDF file (46mb) of the information pack.

20 Global Community Monitor, Report of an International Fact Finding Delegation to County Mayo, Ireland, February 23-27, 2007’
21 AFrI, The Great Gas Giveaway, 2009, p.9
22 see CD attached with this pack for copies of this video, or follow this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=npNxpNiVaG4&feature=related
23 Discharge report for Willie Corduff, Castlebar Hospital, 24th April 2009
24 http://www.indymedia.ie/article/79623
25 Marilyn Horan, Observers’ International, Shell Exploration & Production Ireland Ltd (SEPIL) Corrib Gas Project Report, 2009
26 Lorna Siggins, Watchdog recommends disciplining senior Garda, The Irish Times, 30th October, 2009