Dublin Shell to Sea – Bringing it all Back Home

Day of Action — They deserve it and you deserve bet­ter

On the 18th of May Dublin Shell to Sea is going to esca­late its cam­paign against Shell’s com­mand cen­tre – Cor­rib house on Lee­son Street with anoth­er day of action start­ing at 7.30 am sharp. This attempt to shut down Shell’s HQ, like our last day of action (http://www.indymedia.ie/article/82200), is being called to high­light the incred­i­ble theft of our nat­ur­al resources that totals 51 bil­lion euros in the Cor­rib field alone. This is only pos­si­ble with your help; we encour­age every­one to come along.

Fuel Pover­ty – A Nation­al Scan­dal
Ire­land is cur­rent­ly fac­ing a cri­sis. Our health ser­vice verges on the brink of col­lapse as our nurs­es are forced to strike for decent work­ing con­di­tions. Our politi­cians have told us they can’t give in, in fear we all might ask for decent con­di­tions.

We have been con­stant­ly remind­ed in the elec­tion cam­paign about how much we owe our politi­cians. We are told the Celtic Tiger has brought untold rich­es and this coun­try is now awash with mon­ey. This is true to a cer­tain extent. More mon­ey has been gen­er­at­ed and emi­gra­tion has stopped. But still all is far from per­fect in this coun­try. Mon­ey has been wast­ed and the great­est give­away is hap­pen­ing as we speak. 51 bil­lion euros of our nat­ur­al gas reserves is being giv­en to Shell, Marathon and Sta­toil (for more info on deal see http://www.publicinquiry.ie/reports.php). Whilst these fig­ures are often too big to con­tem­plate, it is some­times eas­i­er to look at who is being direct­ly affect­ed. As usu­al it is those who need help most who will be affect­ed worst.

Unbe­liev­ably, each win­ter, up to 3,000 peo­ple die pre­ma­ture­ly every year from fuel pover­ty (‘The Poten­tial Health Ben­e­fits of Improv­ing House­hold Ener­gy Effi­cien­cy’ Clinch and Healy 2000 and Help The Aged., source: http://www.eirigi.org/campaigns/naturalresources/fuel_p…y.htm). This is our par­ents and grand­par­ents who are dying. What is our politi­cians’ response to this? Instead of try­ing to solve the prob­lem they gave away the one thing that could alle­vi­ate the prob­lem – nat­ur­al gas. Above all else nat­ur­al gas could have ensured that three thou­sand peo­ple lived out their lives, but they chose to give it away instead (http://www.publicinquiry.ie/reports.php).

Roy­al Dutch Shell A.G.M. in The Hague
Whilst our politi­cians are to blame they are not the only ones. Shell, Sta­toil and Marathon are the thieves in this sit­u­a­tion and are mak­ing away with enor­mous amounts of our resources. This week one of the thieves, Shell, will cel­e­brate their grotesque prof­its at their A. G.M. in Hol­land. It’s quite telling that the only place that Shell’s board of direc­tors can be held to account (if you are rich) is in a con­fer­ence hall in The Hague. We the right­ful ben­e­fi­cia­ries of the nat­ur­al gas deposits off our west coast won’t have a say.

The new ben­e­fi­cia­ries are peo­ple like the Queen of Hol­land (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen_Beatrice) Lord Kerr of Kin­lochard (also direc­tor of Rio Tin­to, Jeroen van der Veer, Lin­da Cook, Andy Pyle and Ter­ry Nolan (for oth­er mem­bers of Shell’s board of direc­tors see (http://www.search.shell.com/cgi-bin/rsearch.cgi). Through­out this week Roy­al Dutch Shell will wine and dine the glob­al elite and divide out 51 bil­lion euros of our mon­ey.
At this meet­ing the rest of Shell’s share­hold­ers will get the chance to see how their invest­ments are doing and decide what to do with €51 bil­lion they stole from you and Shell’s exec­u­tives this year will no doubt have a nice cig­ar and cham­pagne at your expense.

These men and women with their suits and brief­cas­es will sit smug in The Hague with their caviar in the knowl­edge that they have ripped off a coun­try that needs its resources bad­ly — Our health ser­vice verges on the brink of col­lapse as our nurs­es are forced to strike for a decent wage, our elder­ly now live in fear of Win­ter as up to 3000 peo­ple die each year from fuel pover­ty and pen­sions are being pri­va­tised.

What you can do?
But all is not doom and gloom, on Fri­day the 18th just as Shell’s Irish elite arrive back hav­ing giv­en away our resources to the glob­al rich. Dublin Shell to Sea plans to greet these peo­ple by shut­ting down their Irish nerve cen­tre and head­quar­ters – Cor­rib House. This is the build­ing where all deci­sions are tak­en, where they hatched the plans to steal our resources and tar­get the Mayo com­mu­ni­ties in their relent­less pur­suit of prof­it. So come and join us in protest­ing against these crim­i­nals and block­ade their offices on Fri­day the 18th of May – they deserve it and you deserve bet­ter!

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