Corrib contractor makes more booze allegations

ALLEGATIONS?More allegations have been made this week about transfers of alcohol to Belmullet Garda Station.?Image: Google Maps

Corrib contractor claims two more loads of booze were delivered to Belmullet gardaí


Shell ‘unequivocally’ rejects claims

Áine Ryan

THE contractor who is in a dispute with Shell over the delivery of a large consignment of alcohol to Belmullet Garda Station before Christmas 2007 now claims the multinational oil giant paid it to deliver more ‘modest’ quantities of alcohol to the station in 2005 and 2006.
Shell, however, ‘unequivocally rejects OSSL’s allegations regarding delivery at any time of alcohol to An Garda SíochΡna’. In a statement yesterday the company said such ‘actions would constitute a serious breach of the Shell Group’s long established business principles and code of conduct to which [Shell] fully commits in the conduct of its operations’. It reiterated the fact that it had carried out an inquiry and there was ‘no evidence’ to support such claims and that the only gift-giving practise they engaged in for a time was ‘modestly priced Christmas hampers’ to locals and business suppliers.
Shell had already welcomed the fact that a senior garda in Mayo is conducting a second ‘examination’ of the matter in which OSSL alleges it is owed over €43,000 for the carriage of €29,500 worth of alcohol from northern Ireland in December 2007. A previous garda inquiry ‘found no evidence’ to support the allegations.
OSSL claims the bulk of this booze was subsequently delivered to the garda station and received by senior gardaí. It also says that as well as the delivery of alcohol, ‘accommodation services’ included ‘a tennis court, cookers, television sets, agricultural equipment, school fees, home improvements, garden centre visits and forestry equipment’ for the local community.
OSSL claims that invoices for such ‘sweeteners’ were shredded and that the accepted practise was for no ‘traceability’.
These gifts were allegedly delivered when the Corrib gas controversy was at its height. They followed  the release of the Rossport Five in September 2005, the temporary suspension of works pending a government commissioned mediation process, led by former trade unionist, Peter Cassells and the deployment in late 2006 of hundreds of gardaí to manage daily protests, that on one occasion led to a baton charge as well as regular violent scenes, outside the Shell project site at Bellanaboy, in isolated north-west Mayo.
In a bid to improve the project’s profile, and enhance relations with the local community, Shell recruited former BBC journalist John Egan, a Mayo native, in late 2005. The editor of The Western People, James Laffey has confirmed that Egan sent him six bottles of wine  before Christmas 2005 but that he had immediately returned them. Two months later, in February 2006 Shell recruited one of the west’s most senior journalists, Christy Loftus. In 2009 Denise Horan, a former editor of The Mayo News, joined Shell as a senior communications advisor.
In an email, sent in September 2012 to Shell’s lawyer, Julia Busby, and copied to other Shell executives and senior gardaí, Des Kane, OSSL co-owner, states: “Let me repeat the 2005 alcohol is paid in part we have no further claim on the outstanding balance the same applies to 2006. 2007 delivery is uninvoiced we waited for your instructions re the burial of this matter such instruction never came despite many promises. Please pay this outstanding invoice now to bring the matter to a close.”
However, Shell says that a month earlier, on August 2, 2012, OSSL had in fact signed a final settlement of all claims and contractual matters in the presence of its legal advisers. Shell confirms that three weeks later OSSL sent an invoice for the December 2007 booze deliveries.
“At the Royal Dutch Shell AGM in May 2013, a commitment was made for a senior Shell representative from outside Ireland to meet Mr Kane of OSSL. That meeting took place in early June 2013.
“No new information was provided by Mr Kane at the time and [Shell] remains satisfied that the contractual dispute between the two companies has been closed,” a Shell spokesman said.