Fri­day June 15, 2007

New pipeline routes, court appear­ances and Gar­da head­locks.

1) Res­i­dents wear­ing clothes torn by Gar­dai take a look at the new pipeline route cor­ri­dors pro­posed by RPS; 2) Wednes­day morn­ing’s pro­ceed­ings in Bel­mul­let dis­trict court and; 3) Thurs­day morn­ing at Bel­lan­aboy.

New pipeline routes
On Tues­day 12th June, the day after police bru­tal­ly forced an ille­gal por­ta­cab­in onto pri­vate land through crowds of pro­test­ers near Pol­lath­omais, Rur­al Plan­ning Ser­vices (RPS) announced the eight new pos­si­ble cor­ri­dors for the Cor­rib gas pipeline. RPS are the com­pa­ny sub­con­tract­ed by Shell to find a new route for the con­tro­ver­sial pipeline promised in the after­math of the Cas­sells report. The select­ed route cor­ri­dors were unveiled at a recep­tion and open evening in the Broad­haven Bay Bel­mul­let. The route unveil­ing was well attend­ed by Shell to Sea cam­paign­ers many wear­ing clothes torn by police at the face off on Mon­day, under­lin­ing the fact that while Shell and their part­ners claim com­mu­ni­ty con­sul­ta­tion ulti­mate­ly they will use force cour­tesy of the Gar­dai to push their project through.

Cam­paign­ers reit­er­at­ed their oppo­si­tion to the Cor­rib project in its cur­rent con­fig­u­ra­tion. They point­ed out that the idea that the pipeline route is the sole prob­lem is a prod­uct of the ‘project split­ting men­tal­i­ty’ that has marred this project from the out­set and that the rec­om­men­da­tion of rerout­ing of the pipeline as a solu­tion to the Cor­rib con­flict comes from the flawed Cassel’s report.

Shell to Sea cam­paign­ers brought plac­ards and a ban­ner read­ing ‘stop before its too late’ into the RPS recep­tion. Pro­test­ers unfurled the ban­ner across the hall and called on every­one opposed to raw gas in Erris to get behind the ban­ner. The room was quick­ly divid­ed into a mass of peo­ple behind the ban­ner chant­i­ng ‘Shell to Sea’ as a hand­ful of RPS per­son­nel looked on. Hav­ing made their point pro­test­ers left the hall togeth­er to chat out­side.

Cam­paign­ers up in court
Cam­paign­ers were back in Bel­mul­let on Wednes­day morn­ing for the sit­ting of Bel­mul­let dis­trict court. Those who were up includ­ed Mr John Mon­aghan of Ross­port for charges relat­ing to two alleged assaults on a Gar­da; five cam­paign­ers who stopped peat haulage for 5 hours on Tues­day 5th June using a ‘lock-on’ on charges of breach of the peace, obstruc­tion and fail­ing to obey the orders of a Gar­da; Mr Ed Collins for alleged assault of a Gar­da on 10th Novem­ber last; one cam­paign­er on charges of dan­ger­ous park­ing and three oth­ers on charges relat­ing to alleged intim­i­da­tion. Mr Niall Har­nett was in court to bring charges of assault, theft and destruc­tion of prop­er­ty against Sgt. But­ler, Inspec­tor Robin­son and Super­in­ten­dent Gan­non. All the cas­es bar Mr Har­netts were adjourned , the bulk of them to the 11th July.

Also present were large num­bers of Gar­dai, over twen­ty in uni­form with the three fac­ing charges in suits. Gar­da MY72 thought it nec­es­sary to bring a baton into court. When an elder­ly lady sit­ting next to him play­ful­ly slid it out of his pock­et he reached for the baton on reflex before mut­ter­ing some­thing about the baton being an item of uni­form and gen­er­al­ly get­ting quite flus­tered.

Niall Har­nett v Sgt. But­ler, Insp. Robin­son and Supt. Gan­non.
Niall Har­nett had sum­monsed Sgt. But­ler, Inspec­tor Robin­son and Super­in­ten­dent Gan­non who were rep­re­sent­ed by Liam Guidera. Mr Har­nett asked the judge for lat­i­tude and patience giv­en his lay sta­tus. Prob­lems arose with the sum­mons­es served by Mr Har­nett on the three Gar­dai. The sum­mons­es had not been filed with the reg­is­trar with­in the four days required but only the night before the court. Mr Har­nett appealed to the dis­cre­tion of the court to allow the sum­mons­es to be entered into the record of the court on that day.

Liam Guidera, solic­i­tor for the defen­dants respond­ed by ques­tion­ing Mr Harnett’s moti­va­tion. He pre­sent­ed the judge with a com­pi­la­tion of Indy­media arti­cles writ­ten by Mr Har­nett and described him as hav­ing “a posi­tion of author­i­ty” with regards to the site. Mr Guidera pro­ceed­ed to make rep­re­sen­ta­tions to the court that Mr Har­nett was abus­ing the process­es of law by “inflam­a­to­ry, defam­a­to­ry and con­temptible” com­ments against Gar­daí on Indy­media. Mr Har­nett respond­ed to Mr Guider­a’s sub­mis­sion, by defend­ing and stand­ing over any Indy­media arti­cles and com­ments that he make, say­ing that his moti­va­tion in writ­ing such arti­cles is sim­ply call the Gar­daí to account and to empow­er peo­ple to stand up to abu­sive Gar­daí.

The mat­ter was then raised of a let­ter that Mr Har­nett wrote to Supt. Joe Gan­non to say that should he or the oth­er 2 Gar­daí involved, wish to return the cam­era or its dam­aged parts to Mr Har­nett, then he would make an appli­ca­tion to Bel­mul­let Dis­trict Court on June 13th to have all three charges dropped against them. Judge Mary Devins gave this rul­ing where she described the let­ter as

“most def­i­nite­ly an inter­fer­ence in the pros­e­cu­tion, a taint of the process, using the court as a tool, and per­haps a weapon, that the pros­e­cu­tor Mr Har­nett in this case can take up and drop as he sees fit. If a Guard had issued pro­ceed­ings in a crim­i­nal case and in the course of evi­dence I heard that that Guard had gone to the accused and had said that ‘if you do such and such a thing, I will not enter this sum­mons, or if you apol­o­gise I will not con­tin­ue this pros­e­cu­tion’, and that per­son refused to reply and the Guard then entered the sum­mons, and I was giv­en that evi­dence in court then I would most def­i­nite­ly con­sid­er that the pros­e­cu­tion was there­by fun­da­men­tal­ly taint­ed and flawed. I would con­sid­er it an abuse of the process, an abuse of the admin­is­tra­tion of jus­tice and an abuse of the dis­trict court. Because of that let­ter I can­not enter­tain the sum­mons­es, and so they are not before the court, and I have no fur­ther com­ment.”

Delays at Bel­lan­aboy
Delays were caused this morn­ing for trucks involved in the trans­port of peat from the pro­posed refin­ery site at Bel­lan­aboy to the Bord na Mona facil­i­ty at Sramore due to the pres­ence of pro­test­ers on the haulage route. A crowd of Shell to Sea sup­port­ers blocked the path of trucks for approx­i­mate­ly 20 min­utes as Gar­dai attempt­ed to move them along. A res­i­dent of the Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp was dragged from his vehi­cle after attempt­ing to dri­ve onto the haulage route and find­ing the way blocked by a crowd of pro­test­ers and Gar­dai. Sev­er­al Gar­dai entered through the back door of the van and attempt­ed to drag him from the vehi­cle in a head­lock, force­ful­ly and delib­er­ate­ly strik­ing the cam­corder he had tak­en out to film the inci­dent. Even­tu­al­ly he was removed from the vehi­cle which the police drove a few metres down the road and parked. They ini­tial­ly refused to return the keys until he pro­duced his doc­u­ments (which would have proved dif­fi­cult, see­ing as they were locked in the van) but relent­ed after an hour. Anoth­er young local man­aged to climb on to a peat truck but was quick­ly removed.