Corrib ‘sweet deal’ now a major national issue

THANKS for your coverage (April 8) of the release of Shell to Sea protester Maura Harrington from Mountjoy jail.

At last the real issues at stake in the Corrib gas controversy are being talked about in the media. The State oppression of communities in north Mayo is no accident — it’s all about money.

The giveaway privatisation of our natural resources, estimated by our own Government at 130 billion barrels of oil and 50 trillion cubic feet of gas in our offshore territory, has sown the seeds of the problems that have followed.

With such a compliant Government the oil companies are attempting to do it on the cheap, dispensing with the need for an offshore platform by building a refinery inland where it happens to drain into the local drinking water reservoir. Initially, local people were concerned for their health and safety, but during their research they stumbled on the resource giveaway. Ever since, local people, with national and international support, have stopped the project in its tracks.

As ever more people become aware of the mismanagement of our public finances, with consequent redundancies and public spending cuts, the Corrib controversy has become more of a national issue, and it now seems inevitable the sweet deals conceded to the oil industry will be repealed shortly.

Ironically, the multinationals’ own greed is becoming their undoing.

Paul Lynch

Middle Square

Macroom

Co Cork