Irish Independent: Jail me, says gas pipeline protester: “A FARMER has vowed to go to jail rather than let oil giant Shell build a pipeline through his land.”: “Yesterday the Erris Community Campaign group protested outside the Shell headquarters in Dublin…”: Tuesday 21 June 2005

A FARMER has vowed to go to jail rather than let oil giant Shell build a pipeline through his land.

Willie Corduff said yesterday that people in Rosport, Co Mayo, were being told by Shell, Statoil and Marathon - the three companies that have formed a consortium to take gas inland from the Corrib field - that they were safe.

"They are proposing to lay a high-pressure gas pipeline in bogland - something that has never been tried before - and to build the refinery on bogland," Mr Corduff said.

"Local people are being bullied by Shell; the company wants the people to take the compensation and leave. I am not going to leave. I'm going to stay and if I have to go to jail, I will," he added.

Yesterday the Erris Community Campaign group protested outside the Shell headquarters in Dublin before going to the Norwegian Embassy to protest at the role taken by Statoil, the Norwegian state-owned oil company, in the Corrib pipeline.

The Erris group claims that unprocessed gas will travel in the pipeline at far higher pressures than those found anywhere else on the national grid. They also fear there will be dangerous emissions from the refinery.

Lorna Reid

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