Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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Question 4: To ask the Minister for Communications; Energy and Natural Resources when the next meeting of the North West Forum, Erris, is due to take place; the agenda for this meeting; if he intends changing the membership of the forum; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [11073/11]

Pat Rabbitte (Dublin South West, Labour)
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The North West Mayo Forum was established in 2008 with the dual objectives of providing an opportunity for dialogue between parties with an interest in the Corrib gas project and offering an opportunity for furthering the socio-economic development of the north-west Mayo region. While it was intended that membership of the forum would include a broad representation from local community groups, those groups opposed to the Corrib gas project declined to participate in it.

Over the course of its first year, five meetings of the forum were held. In the past 18 months the forum met only once, and that was just over a year ago. A decision has not been taken to convene a further meeting of the forum at this time.

The construction phase of the project is well advanced, with construction of the gas terminal, the offshore pipeline and the sub-sea facilities almost complete. The principal remaining element of the development is the construction of the onshore section of the pipeline. That work is due to commence this summer.

The consent conditions monitoring committee, being established by my Department to monitor implementation of the conditions of the section 40 gas pipeline consent, will provide an opportunity for representatives of the local community to engage in a meaningful way on the construction of the onshore pipeline.

Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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I am disappointed to hear there is no plan to have a meeting of the forum. Does the Minister accept that the forum was a good way to resolve issues on the ground and that it did extraordinarily good work? Does the Minister agree the challenge was to secure greater participation, although some of the groups who were opposed to it in various forms attended the meetings as observers?

Does the Minister agree that one of the roles of the forum was to ensure the area would benefit from the development and that issues of conflict within the community would be resolved? Does he accept there was wide community participation in the forum by many groups and that it helped to resolve problems on the ground? I ask the Minister to reconsider calling a meeting of the forum in the near future as it was doing very good work.

Pat Rabbitte (Dublin South West, Labour)
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I do not dispute it was a good idea. Unfortunately, it has not been the success all of us might have hoped. There has not been a meeting for more than a year and Deputy Ó Cuív is aware that on the last couple of occasions, when great efforts were made to convene a meeting, it broke up in some disarray because of the activities of a small number of people who are not representative of the area.

Deputy Ó Cuív properly raises the issue of the benefits that might redound to the local area. That is a useful aspect of the dialogue. A great deal has happened since Peter Cassells was brought in by my predecessor. I was involved in that decision myself. He went to do a task that was very useful with tangible, beneficial spin offs for the area as a result of the Cassells report. I do not intend to disband the forum, I will be briefed by its chairman within the next couple of weeks and I will listen to what he has to say.

Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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Who does the Minister think is representative of the area? The issue in north-west Mayo is that people have very different views on this project and those views vary from area to area of the Erris region, a huge geographical area. Those who were opposed to the gas pipeline comprise both outsiders and local people and they must be respected for their views. Will the Minister accept that the only way forward in such situations is continuous and slow dialogue? He is absolutely correct that some of the meetings were acrimonious but some of the most productive meetings we had were quite acrimonious; my view was we were making progress. Considering what the Minister said about the deep-freezing of the forum in some limbo, will he reconsider reverting to the situation where it would be proactively driving reconciliation and also development within the Erris area? Is it intended to make natural gas available in Ballycroy, Carrowteige and Belmullet?

Pat Rabbitte (Dublin South West, Labour)
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It is beyond my powers to answer the Deputy's first question about who represents the area. It is, unfortunately, very divided. I acknowledge the patient work done by the members of the forum under the chairmanship of Mr. Joe Brosnan but I would have to draw attention to the fact that three of the groups opposed to the project for one reason or another did not attend and this is a great pity. I do not know who represents the area and I suppose the best yardstick would be the results in the ballot box but they did not seem to bear out or were not directly related to the groups that can raise most decibels in the area.

I heard what Deputy Ó Cuív said and I have told him it is my intention to talk to the chairman and to weigh up the advice he gives me.