A report for Minister for the Environment John Gormley on unauthorised drilling by Shell consultants on a protected habitat in north Mayo is believed to have found that no significant damage has been done.
However, Mr Gormley is seeking expert advice on the implications of the report, given that legislation to protect the Special Area of Conservation (Sac) on the Glenamoy bog at Glengad was breached by the consultants last month. Under the European Communities (Natural Habitats) Regulations 1997, the Minister for Environment must authorise any such work in a Sac by written consent, and contravention of this "without reasonable excuse" is described as an "offence" in the legislation.
Six weeks ago, a solidarity camp on the same site at Glengad was directed by court order to be dismantled by January 1st, as Mayo County Council said that it posed a threat to a "particularly fragile landscape".
The consultants, RPS, have admitted that no permission was sought, and have described it as an "oversight", due to "miscommunication" within their own company and Shell E&P Ireland.
A National Parks and Wildlife Service official who examined the area last week found no significant damage had been done to the "annexe 1" or fragile part of the habitats.
A representative of the Choctaw native American community which has donated $8,000 to the Mayo Shell to Sea campaign has appealed for dialogue in the Corrib gas dispute.
Gary White Deer, Choctaw artist, told The Irish Timesthat he believed there was "a major opportunity for the multinational and members of the community to sit down and work something out for everyone's benefit".
The donation of $8,000 is equivalent in today's values to the $710 sent by the Choctaw native American community to Ireland for famine relief in 1847.
It was presented by Mr White Deer to Vincent McGrath of the Rossport Five at the opening of a hedge school hosted by the justice and peace organisation, Afri, in Erris at the weekend.
The sum has "no strings attached", Mr White Deer said, and represents the unspent balance of some $40,000 given in Ireland and the USA to Choctaw victims of Hurricane Katrina in Mississippi in 2005. "It is maintaining the circle, as in 160 years of contact between my community and Ireland," he said.
Afri's hedge school in Glenamoy and Glengad was yesterday addressed by a number of speakers, including Goldman environmental award winner and Rossport Five member Willie Corduff and Sr Majella McCarron, a missionary sister and friend of executed Ogoni leader Ken Saro-Wiwa.
On November 10th 1995, Saro-Wiwa and eight Ogoni colleagues were executed by the Nigerian state. They had opposed the activities of oil companies in the Niger Delta, especially Shell and Chevron.
