Ballinaboy account

mayo | rights, freedoms and repression | news report

Tuesday January 30, 2007 17:51

by cold reporter

Long before most people living on this island have woken up and put on the kettle for their morning cup of tea, residents in northwest County Mayo are already standing along the cold tar road outside shell’s Corrib gas terminal at Ballinaboy. They face a line of gardai.

yet another morning vigil

The sky is still dark but there is a spotlight coming from the construction site facing the line of residents. This light illuminates the residents’ breaths in the cold morning air, and also makes it easier for the garda with his video camera to document precisely who is taking part in this picket. As dawn breaks the headlights of the convoy of construction vehicles and the busses carrying construction workers approaches in the distance.

The gardai look promptly nervous and attentive, sizing up the residents and their supporters. Over the past few months many people have put their bodies in front of the huge trucks to try and delay the work that is happening behind the metal fence.

There is a call for the gates of the site to be opened and the gardai step forward into the middle of the road in line formation, protecting the huge rumbling vehicles that are here to construct one of the most controversial gas refineries being built anywhere in the world. The residents vocalize their dissent against those driving the vehicles and also against those in uniform protecting this building.

There are 2 convoys, and there is a gentle attempt by a few supporters of the residents to move in front of each of them. Each attempt is quickly and roughly cleared away by the a few of the gardai. If you have been reading indymedia.ie over the past few months you will know that this is a fairly regular occurrence and one is tempted to wonder just how many people it would take to blockade the road and halt construction on this site even for a day.

But symbolic gestures and short term stoppages are not what these residents want. Unless you have been in a coma for the past year you will be well aware that the residents and their supporters here in Mayo are calling for this project to be stopped, reworked and definitely for it to be moved to a safer location.
From questioning a few people I can see this is not a ‘nimby’ (not in my back yard) ‘locals only’ struggle. Aside from the health and safety issues that will come with a gas refinery emitting toxins into the air close to a residential community and near to the local water supply (of which there are many); to-date the paltry negotiation procedure and community-consultation-charade the residents have had to endure makes one realize that if this project goes ahead it will set a convenient but devastating blueprint for bully-tactics and anti-democratic diktats to be replicated across the country. This is a struggle that affects each of us living here.