Áine Ryan
THE EU yesterday (Monday) committed to acting ‘proactively’ to raise issues about the controversial Corrib gas project with both the Irish Government and the European Commission. Former Rossport Five spokesman, Dr Mark Garavan confirmed to The Mayo News last night that he and a group from north Mayo were ‘very happy’ with the ‘positive response’ they received in Brussels yesterday.
Dr Garavan and the group from Pobal Chill Chomáin (Kilcommon Parish Community) presented submissions to the EU’s Petitions Committee and the Environment Directorate about a number of key aspects of the controversial project.
“The objective of this petition is to ensure a Corrib project that is environmentally and socially of the highest standard and receives the consent of its local receiving community,” explained Dr Garavan.
“The issue is not the gas – the issue is the location of the gas processing facility,” he continued.
In his petition, Dr Garavan noted that, under the EU Habitats Directive, a SAC (Special Area of Conservation) can only be adversely impacted on if ‘there is no satisfactory alternative’. He adds that recent case law from the European Court of Justice ‘suggests a very high standard must be met in order to permit a derogation’ and, moreover, that this derogation should ‘only be in the interest of public health and safety’.
He argues for the feasibility of an alternative onshore development at Glinsk – a proposal made by three local priests last November, but dismissed by Shell. The Glinsk option neither requires a land-based production pipe nor is it situated in a SAC, he observed.
The submission on the environmental threat posed by the project was written for Pobal Chill Chomáin – which is comprised of former Shell-to-Sea supporters – by former Bord Gáis Engineering Manager, Leo Corcoran,
In it, he argues that EU directives have been breached by the pipeline consents, and that the EPA’s Integrated Pollution Prevention Control (IPPC) licence for the refinery is also in breach of Codes of Practice and engineering standards for locating such facilities. He specifically refers to the location of the refinery, which is within a drinking water catchment supplying around 10,000 people.
Dr Garavan also argued that an injunction – termed ‘interim measures’ – suspending certain projects or practices in member states, can be issued by the European Court of Justice, as a form of legal injunction at the request of the European Commission.
Such injunctions have been taken over the past number of years by the commission’s environment directorate in relation to spring hunting in Malta and Italy, and the threat posed by a road-building project to the peatland habitat of the Rospuda valley in Poland.
