The folks in suits finally got a taste of the conflict they’ve been orchestrating in Co. Mayo, Ireland for the past decade. Representatives from Shell and their team of expert witnesses who are presenting the planning application for the Corrib Gas onshore pipeline to the Irish planning board were prevented from leaving the oral hearing Thursday night by protesters from the Rossport Solidarity Camp.
Thursday was a long day for Shell’s expert witnesses, bosses, and executives. The planning board’s oral hearing into the Corrib Gas pipeline has been ongoing in Co. Mayo for the past four weeks, and local residents have been questioning Shell experts on details surrounding the proposed onshore pipeline.
At 10pm, exhausted and with long journeys ahead of them Shell delegates exited the front doors of the hotel to discover that protesters had boarded their bus, holding placards and banners with messages reading “Energy shouldn’t cost the earth”and “Shell: destroying the world, one community at a time.”
At one stage when four high up Shell people tried to leave in a car, two protesters met them at the road and blocked their car with a banner reading “Shell’s lies cost lives.” The annoyed driver attempted to drive through the banner and in the process ran over one person’s foot. No serious injury was sustained and the driver refused to make any apologies for his actions.
After delaying the Shell suits for over an hour, one member of the protest explained that “it was so satisfying to finally see these people at the top, who are never held accountable suddenly be confronted with their own responsibility for this project and the devastation it has caused to the community”