Tag Archives: shell

148512_114728_1Further to claims in the Observer last Sunday that Shell purchased alcohol for garda officers. .

Oil executive-turned-anti Shell-activist, John Donovan (above), writes:

As a long term Shell shareholder I demand that Royal Dutch Shell issues a high court writ against the publisher (me) who for many months has repeatedly posted articles online, picked up by Google News, stating as a matter of fact that Shell has corrupted the Irish Police Force, the Garda.

Shell has an army of several hundred in-house lawyers led by Peter Rees QC. Why are they so reticent on this matter?

If Shell is certain that the events that its former Mr Fixit company OSSL says took place, are in fact an invention by OSSL, then it is duty-bound to issue proceedings to defend the companies reputation against these scandalous lies. 

The same applies to the Garda and the senior Garda officers who have been named in the scurrilous articles. They too must sue, otherwise people will draw the correct conclusion.

Please send all high court writs to my brilliant solicitor and friend, Mr Richard Woodman of Royds of London, who has successfully sued Shell six times in the high court on my behalf and also successfully defended a Counterclaim brought by Shell.

The truth of the matter is that despite the repeated in-house investigations said to have found no evidence, no one at the Garda or Shell will deny that these shocking events (OSSL showering Garda officers with free booze on behalf of Shell) actually happened.

Members of the news media: give Shell and the Garda PR people a call. See if you can obtain a straightforward denial from either that the events revealed in The Observer article took place?  At the moment you are being deceived by trickery into believing that Shell and the Garda are innocent of the charges, when in fact they are guilty as hell. 

The net is closing in on one of the biggest scandals Ireland has ever seen. Shell and the Garda are only making it worse by the cover-up tactics.

Gulp.

Where Is My Defamation Writ From Shell? (John Donovan, RoyalDutchShellPlc.com)

Previously: Nothing to See Here

Strange tale of Shell’s pipeline battle, the Garda and £30,000 worth of booze (Ed Vulliamy, The Observer, August 10)

Thanks Richard

Polla

The Observer is reporting that a small oil services company called OSSL gifted sweeteners to residents and gardaí of Rossport, Co. Mayo, on behalf of Shell from 2002 to 2010 – including a delivery of €35,000 of alcohol to Belmullet Garda Station in 2007.

It reports:

“The company (OSSL), managed by Desmond Kane from Glasgow and Neil Rooney from Belfast, insists that the services it carried out for Shell even ran to providing the police force with alcohol soon after a major clash with protesters – along with other outlandish favours to residents.”

“More sinisterly, OSSL also claims that a Shell manager demanded that Rooney withhold evidence after the clash, which occurred at Pollathomais in 2007. Rooney says that he heard an officer say of the pipeline protesters, “drive them into the sea”, but was told that this “cannot be part of your statement” to an ombudsman because the officer concerned was “our man” and “had to be protected at all costs”.

…

“But the “accommodation services” went too far for OSSL. It was tasked to provide “a tennis court, cookers, television sets, agricultural equipment, school fees, home improvements, garden centre visits, forestry equipment”, says Rooney – for local residents. He says that he and Kane found themselves paying workmen to do one thing, then invoicing Shell for something else, and often administering “accommodation services” themselves.”

“The pattern was the same as the saga reached its reported nadir: the delivery, from Northern Ireland in an unmarked van, of alcohol worth €35,000 (£30,100) to the Garda station at Belmullet, where the policing operation was quartered at Christmas, 2007. Kane quotes a Supt John Gilligan as saying, while he was helping to unload the consignment of booze, “it’s lucky these walls are high”, lest the protesters caught a glimpse of what was going on.”

Jay. Sus.

Strange tale of Shell’s pipeline battle, the Garda and £30,000 worth of booze (Ed Vulliamy, The Observer)

Pic: Pollathomais Pier in June 2007 (Shell To Sea)

Previously: Paul Murphy MEP, Rossport And The Law

 This Is Worrying

“Tampered With”

Corrib Gardaí: “Give Me Your Name And Address Or I’ll Rape You”

The UN On Ireland’s Human Rights Defenders (And Denis) 

Shell

Video footage taken last Saturday of ‘bubbling puddles’ in Sruwaddacon estuary near Rossport in Co. Mayo.

Erris Camera writes:

“Strange depressions and bubbling puddles appear in Sruwaddacon tidal estuary, where Shell are tunnelling. It seems that air or gas is emerging from sand above the place where the boring machine is at work, indicating that water may be leaking in to the tunnel…”

Anyone?

 “The protesters tried to climb on top of the van.”

“There were scuffles with guards and people’s clothes were torn.”

“One woman had her trousers torn off.”

“Then about 50 gardai held the crowd back until the convoy passed.”

Shell to Sea protest: Scuffles at Corrib gas project as Tunneling Equipment Arrives (Irish Independent)

Pic by @GerryCasey

 

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_NSFNaKh4e8

Bas Ó Curraoin, of éírígí, writes:

This is footage of Shell’s Tunnel Boring Machine (TBM) leaving Dublin Port as it began its 320km journey to Rossport in North West Mayo on Sunday night.

The private energy company intends to use the TBM to bore a tunnel for a highly controversial gas pipeline which will link the Corrib Gas Field to the company’s gas refinery at Ballinaboy.

The video shows part of the massive Garda operation that has been put in place to assist Shell transport the TBM to Mayo. Such use of Garda resources has become commonplace over the last seven years as the state has spend tens of millions of euros facilitating Shell’s exploitation of the Corrib Gas Field.

The Corrib Gas Field is believed to contain tens of billions of euros worth of natural gas.

The deal which saw Shell gain ownership of Corrib was based upon a legal framework developed by politicians including Ray Burke and Bertie Ahern.

Under that deal the people of Ireland will receive virtually no return from the Corrib
Gas, but will instead have to buy back their own gas from Shell at the full market rate.

We are calling for the immediate nationalisation of the Corrib Gas Field, the Barryroe Oil Field and all other Irish hydrocarbon resources.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ndjJodItl30&feature=autoshare

“Please don’t pepper spray me.”

From Soundmigration:

This incident occured on 22nd Feb 2012, as a local man was driving to Ceathrú Thaidhgh where he is working on finishing his new house, stopped by Gardaí at the Shell site. It was in Glengad, road is L1202, about 75 metres from Shell’s Glengad compound.

Statement from the driver, John Monaghan, a Rossport resident and spokesperson for Pobail Chill Chomain, which opposes Shell’s Corrib Gas project.

“This occurred at lunchtime on Ash Wednesday, 22nd February, 2012, on a small local road, L1202 in Glengad, Co Mayo. This is close to Shell’s haulage route and about 70 metres from Shell’s compound in Glengad. This is a few kilometres from Shell’s refinery site at Bellanaboy.
“You can see that two female Gardaí approached the car. When the third Garda, a man, approached the window, he had his baton drawn before he knocked on the window. After he smashed the window, I got out of the car. The Garda told me I was under arrest. I was surrounded by Gardaí with batons drawn.
” ‘Are you refusing to show your licence?’,” the male Garda said. I thought I was in for a beating.
“When I took out my driver’s licence and he looked at it, the atmosphere changed instantly. They all backed away and suddenly I wasn’t under arrest any more. The only conclusion I can draw is that they assumed I was an outside supporter, from the Rossport Solidarity Camp. I assume that when they saw my name and a Rossport address address, that is what changed their approach.
“So, I was left a bleeding hand from the broken window and with a car with a broken window on the side of the road. I phoned Belmullet Garda station to complain and to ask for assistance. They refused to send anyone.
“Following that refusal, I phoned the Garda Ombudsman’s office in Dublin. They said that as there was no complaint to investigate, they would not investigate until a formal complaint was made. They told me I could make a written complaint or visit their office (which is in Dublin).
“So I felt the best thing to do was to release this footage, so that people can see what life is like on the roads here close to Shell’s operations. This kind of thing is happening to varying degrees every day here. People need to know that this is happening, that it could happen to them and that they will receive no protection.”

Meanwhile: Week-Long Corrib Court Sittings Begin (Anton McNulty, Mayo News News)

Prison Sentence for 57 year old Shell to Sea spokesperson (ShellToSea.com) Thanks Mark Malone