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One of Rossport Five to speak Thursday 11th August, Junction, Bishop Street, Derry, 8.00pm

Wednesday 10th August 2005

One of the leaders of the Rossport Five campaign is to speak in Derry tomorrow (Thursday 11th August) night.

Maura Harrington, a representative of five men jailed for opposing a Shell oil pipeline, will join local speakers at the meeting in the Junction in Bishop Street at eight o'clock.

Ms. Harrington has been speaking at meetings all over the South since the jailing of the five on June 29th last. This will be her first campaign visit to the North.

The five Mayo farmers are being held in Clover Hill prison in Dublin for refusing to give an undertaking to stop campaigning against the pipeline being built across their land. The pipeline would pass within 70 yards of homes in Rossport Local people fear it would not be safe.

Tomorrow night's meeting is being hosted by the Socialist Environmental Alliance. Also speaking will be Rose Kelly of the Foyle Ethical Investment Campaign and Eamonn McCann of the SEA.

In a statement yesterday, the SEA said: "This is a straightforward case of the Dublin Government putting profit before people.

"The purpose of the pipeline is to bring gas on-shore from the Corrib field for processing. The gas could easily be processed on a platform at sea---the way it's done all over the world. But it's more profitable to pump the gas on-shore.

"Even the Marine and Natural Resources Minister in Dublin, Noel Dempsey, has admitted that the proposed pipeline is 'unique both in Ireland and Europe.'

"The safety fears of Mayo people are well-founded. In the last two decades, pipeline accidents have accounted for 382 deaths in the US alone. But Shell, which made .5 billion last year, won't let human safety stand in the way of profit.

"Shell was implicated in the judicial murder of the Ogoni activist Ken Saro Wiwa and eight others in Nigeria in 1995. The issue then was the same---the ravishing of the environment for the sake of oil extraction. Greenpeace said at the time that, 'The blood of Ken Saro-Wiwa will permanently stain the name of Shell.'

"But that didn't stop the Ahern Government handing over the natural resources of Ireland to the same blood-stained outfit.

"The SEA has been involved in Derry in resisting the efforts of the multi-billion pound Ryanair company to pressurise politicians into evicting local people to make way for a runway at Eglinton. The same basic issue arises in Mayo. Do we build an economy and a society based on the interests of the people and the preservation of our environment----or do we allow giant companies to ride roughshod over everything in their path, in the name of 'development?'

"We urge local people to come and listen to the case presented by Maura Harrington, and to help make the links between the Mayo campaign and campaigns here. We are all in this together."





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