Shell blames blockade for loss of 35 jobs

Shell E&P Ireland said today it had laid off 35 workers on its Corrib gas pipeline in Co Mayo, blaming the ongoing protests.

The oil giant is currently embroiled in a bitter stand-off with local residents who are objecting to its €900 million project to pump gas at high pressure from the Corrib gas field along the pipe to an onshore refinery at Bellanaboy in north Mayo.

Five protesters remain in Cloverhill Prison today over their protest against the pipeline. The men - brothers Philip and Vincent McGrath, Micheál Ó Seighín, Willie Corduff and Brendan Philbin - were jailed four weeks ago for contempt of a court order banning them from blocking Shell E&P Ireland's access to land it is building the pipeline on.

They want Shell to build the gas refinery offshore because they fear that pumping unrefined gas past their homes will lead to a health and safety risk.

Shell's operations manager Mark Carrigy claimed today protesters were blockading the landfall site at Rossport and at the pipeline terminal site at Bellanaboy. "This has effectively halted all work and we have been left with very little option but to lay off these workers," he said.

The workers affected are mainly engineers and surveyors working with a sub-contractor near Rossport.

The company has agreed to halt all work on the site for two months to allow for a safety review to be carried out. Minister for Communications, Marine and Natural Resources Noel  Dempsey announced this week he has set up a high-level technical group to monitor work on the pipeline. The review of the high-pressure line is due to take at least eight weeks.

Earlier today, Shell E&P Ireland chairman Andy Pyle said the company will respond to accusations that it had breached a ministerial consent on building the pipeline "within the next day or two".

Mr Dempsey wrote to the company last weekend, stating the company had acted outside the terms of ministerial consents on certain works, including the welding of sections of pipeline.

Shell chairman Andy Pyle said this morning the project had a wide range of conditions attached to it. He said the company had been "meticulously careful" to comply with these conditions.

"We try to follow all of these consents and conditions and if there's a case where we haven't, then we regret that," he said. He said Shell was investigating Mr Dempsey's claims and would respond "within the next day or two".

Mr Pyle accepted that the landowners were concerned about safety issues along the pipeline, but insisted "everything is being done to address their concerns".

Mr Pyle insisted that Shell had done everything possible to allow the five men to purge their contempt and be released from prison. "They do seem very determined, and it is difficult to understand when the safety review the Minister has put in place is designed to address their concerns very directly," said Mr Pyle.

"Certainly, until that review is complete, it's very difficult to see how we're going to move this forward."

However, he said it was made clear in the High Court yesterday that Shell can't simply waive the order under which the five men were jailed to allow them to be freed.

Mr Justice Joseph Finnegan said the men must purge their contempt before he will hear claims that when Shell sought to jail them last month, it may have been in breach of an undertaking not to carry out certain works linked to the installation of the pipeline near the men's homes.

Labour Party leader Pat Rabbitte claimed today Mr Pyle's insistence that Shell's hands were tied by the High Court is "both misleading and self-serving".

Mr Rabbitte said Shell had agreed to halt work for the two months it would take to complete the safety review. "There is no ongoing work for anyone to object to and no work that can be interfered with by objectors," he said. "There is therefore no ongoing need for the injunction and no need to keep anyone in jail."

Shell today welcomed a decision by the recently created Commercial Court not to refer planning permission for the Corrib pipeline for judicial review.