Tommy Broughan (Dublin North East, Labour)

I wish to share my time with Deputy Michael D. Higgins.

When the people of Dublin applauded the five released Rossport citizens on Saturday last, they were rightly acknowledging the great determination, courage and perseverance of the men from north west Mayo. The thousands who marched behind them and the bystanders who stopped to cheer instinctively understood the Rossport residents did not lightly give up their freedom for 94 days and only as a last desperate resort in a very unequal struggle with giant international exploration companies were they prepared to defy a court injunction. On each of my visits to Micheál Ó Seighín, Mr. Vincent McGrath, Mr. Willie Corduff, Mr. Philip McGrath and Mr. Brendan Philbin at Cloverhill Prison they always concluded our conversations by strongly stressing that the Corrib impasse was simply due to a matter of the health and safety of their families and community. It was a message which I took to the Minister, Deputy Noel Dempsey, Shell, Statoil and all the other interested parties. Their release from prison after three months and the hopeful developments which facilitated their release are a vindication of their brave and resolute stand.

As day followed day during the imprisonment, like most observers, I was struck by the great support the men received from their wives and families. Outside the court, at public demonstrations and in Cloverhill Prison, the wives and children of the Rossport Five provided staunch and unyielding encouragement. The people of Rossport, Erris and County Mayo also gave their support. My key link during the sad events of the past three months was Mr. Harry Barrett and the Mayo branch of the Labour Party. Within days of the men's imprisonment, Mr. Barrett suggested that we make urgent contact with our sister Labour Party in Norway and Statoil. It must also be acknowledged that the Shell to Sea Campaign provided a stream of information and support for the five imprisoned men on its website and through the media. Much of the information provided for me and other Dáil colleagues on the history of the Corrib project and exploration in Irish waters comes by way of the diligence of the Shell to Sea group.

It is clear that the Minister, his predecessors and the Taoiseach bear a heavy responsibility for the appalling mess which resulted in the imprisonment of the Rossport Five. Their gross neglect of Ireland's natural resources, characterised by the minimal number of staff in the petroleum affairs division of the Department of Communications, Marine and Natural Resources, led to the situation where a huge multinational such as Shell felt able to act with impunity and coolly disregard planning conditions and ministerial consent in the building of a totally illegal stretch of pipeline. How could four civil servants monitor a €1 billion major infrastructural project? Is it any wonder that the Minister and his Department had hardly a clue as to the size of the Corrib field or the likelihood of future discoveries off our coast?

At last week's meeting of the Joint Committee on Communications, Marine and Natural Resources, a committee disgracefully filibustered and delayed in meeting during the men's imprisonment by the Fianna Fáil-Progressive Democrats majority, the Minister could only wring his hands and make nonsensical comments about spending €10 million or €20 million of public money on drilling oil and gas wells in the Atlantic. I will repeat what I said to him on that occasion. There is another way which has been well trodden by the Norwegians, the Danes, the people of the Shetlands, the Newfoundlanders and many other smaller states and regions. It was best articulated by the Norwegian Government in the late 1960s and early 1970s when it told Shell, BP, Texaco and other representatives of big oil companies to leave the Norwegian oil and gas fields alone until "we know what you know". When Norwegian engineers and scientists had learned what the oil industry knew, the Norwegian Government permitted exploration to proceed on terms which firstly benefited the Norwegian nation and its descendants.

The Minister will reply that only two applicants were involved in the recent licensing round and that the strike rate for our exploration in the Atlantic is only one in 30 wells. The level of independent expertise available to the Government has always been derisory and the Department has functioned — to paraphrase IBEC's characterisation of CER — as the downtown office of Marathon and Shell.

Last Saturday I described the imprisonment of the Rossport Five as a wake-up call for the people. The suffering of the men and their families will have an enduring legacy if the House closely examines and profoundly reforms the legislation and planning procedures governing the licensing and development of our national resources. The legislative and exploration planning framework failed the people of Rossport and County Mayo. Throughout the long saga of the Enterprise Oil and Shell planning application, there have been continuous complaints about the 1960 Act, the 1992 licensing terms and the 1976 Gas Act. In 1987 significant changes were introduced by the then Minister, Mr. Ray Burke, which many citizens believe should be the subject of a tribunal of inquiry. In 1992 the Taoiseach and the then Minister, Mr. Bobby Molloy, issued the current licensing terms.

It is amazing that all aspects of the Corrib project were never discussed in detail in this House or Seanad Éireann in the ten years since the Corrib discovery. The long-standing and well based complaint from the Rossport Five and their supporters of the very small contribution of this €1 billion project to the economy and society of County Mayo and Connacht was never aired in this House until they began their imprisonment. We asked many questions over a period of months but the Minister's Department provided very little information. It is clear that the governing legislation is defective in the manner it cedes incredible powers to the Minister of the day in respect of exploration without the ongoing scrutiny of the Oireachtas. It is also defective in regard to health and safety issues, as clearly identified by the Rossport community, as well as the absence of a role for the Environmental Protection Agency in the invigilation of exploration projects. The Labour Party believes all of these matters must be addressed urgently and calls on the Minister to bring forward amending legislation. The five Rossport citizens have always stressed to me that the total lack of consultation by Shell on their concerns and their real fears for the health and safety of their families has been the key motivation for their long struggle against the Corrib project in its current form.

Throughout the planning process in the 28th Dáil there were allegations, most notably by our colleague, Deputy Ring, that the Minister of State, Deputy Fahey, and the then Department of the Marine and Natural Resources were interfering in the process and seeking to intimidate Mayo County Council. As I outlined last week, it is also amazing that within days of the start of the general election campaign for this Dáil on 15 April 2002 the Minister of State approved the plan of development for the Corrib field under the 1960 Act, approved the giving of consent to construct a pipeline under the 1976 Gas Act and the giving of consent to construct sub-sea structures under the Continental Shelf Act. Incredibly, the Department announced these authorisations and then added that the petroleum affairs division was still in discussions with Enterprise Energy Ireland on the conditions attaching to each authorisation. The Minister of State also gave approval, in principle, to developments under the Foreshore Act.

The Minister, Deputy Dempsey, has been quick to state how modifications of the licensing regime would deter potential exploration ventures, but this does not seem to be the case in other jurisdictions, most notably the United Kingdom where Chancellor Gordon Brown changed the British licensing regime in the 2002 budget and was met with denouncements much like the repeated comments of the Minister. However, subsequent licensing rounds in the United Kingdom resulted in an unprecedented number of applications.

Early in the period that I represented the Labour Party in this portfolio several Dublin citizens were killed in a house gas explosion. I drew the attention of the Joint Committee on Communications, Marine and Natural Resources to the complete lack of gas infrastructure in Connacht when the committee last questioned Bord Gáis Éireann. Against this background, the information I received on the Rossport pipeline from physicists such as Professor Werner Blau and other scientists is disturbing. The maximum allowable operating pressure of 345 bar seems incredibly high for a structure passing within 70 metres of a family home. We were repeatedly told that the design code used by Shell engineers to achieve a particular pipe wall thickness was the British Standard 8010, which I am informed is now obsolete. The pressure of gas proposed to be transported through the pipeline only 70 metres from a home equates to 4.4. GW or 2.2 kt of TNT. Therefore, the deeply held fears of Rossport residents have a strong basis.

The chief executive officer of Shell, Mr. Andy Pyle, told me that Shell and its partners had spent €6 million in the local economy since construction activity commenced and that the company was committed to making contributions to local community funds of €2 million. He also stressed that there would be 1,000 construction jobs, ancillary jobs and ultimately 50 permanent jobs at the refinery. However, people in north Mayo correctly point out that in the long term the addition to the economy and society of north Mayo and the rest of the county will be derisory. I call on the Minister to start today to greatly increase the gains for the local economy by utilising all our State agencies, Shell and Statoil to bring forward a plan of development which will ensure many of these resources come to north Mayo.

It remains an outrage that the five Rossport citizens should have had to endure 94 days in Cloverhill Prison to vindicate their position and secure an agreed mediation and safety audit structure. I am proud to record that the essence of the formula which finally led to their release was first proposed and advocated strongly by the leader of the Labour Party, Deputy Rabbitte, in early July. I acknowledge a similar formula was put forward by the leader of Fine Gael and our colleagues in that party. At our meetings with the Minister, the chief executive of Shell, Mr. Andy Pyle, and his executives, Mr. Helge Helgestad and Mr. Peter Smith of Statoil, we constantly urged the lifting of the court injunction as the first crucial step in securing an agreed resolution of this affair. We were also the first Irish representatives to make contact with the Norwegian embassy and the outgoing Norwegian Prime Minister in July. The Taoiseach resolutely refused my request to recall Dáil Éireann on this matter while the Chairman of the Joint Committee on Communications, Marine and Natural Resources, Deputy O'Flynn, failed to call a meeting of the committee to help broker a solution. The fact that Norway was in the throes of a general election campaign also made it difficult to exert pressure on Statoil and Shell to change their approach and free the Rossport men. Now that they are free, I do not underestimate the difficulties which will have to be overcome in the coming weeks to move the Corrib project towards a fully agreed gas recovery development.

It is essential that the released men, their families and supporters are fully involved in all aspects of shaping a process to fully review the pipeline project. From my research and observations, I cannot see how the current pipeline proposal can be sustained even as part of the Advantica review process. An offshore and undersea solution seems the only way forward. I salute the bravery and integrity of the Rossport Five, their families and supporters, and thank the Minister, Mr. Andy Pyle of Shell and Mr. Helge Hatlestad of Statoil for restoring their freedom and putting in place a framework to break the impasse and bring this vital national resource at Corrib into production.

See this speech in context