Cowley calls on Minister to resign over gas row

Independent Mayo TD Dr Jerry Cowley renewed his calls for Minister for Natural Resources Noel Dempsey to resign in the continuing row over the controversial Corrib pipeline development.

In a Dáil row, Dr Cowley called on the Minister to "consider his position" over the stalled mediation process, but Mr Dempsey said the Mayo TD "will not bully and intimidate me like some of his friends tried to do in Mayo".

The Minister stressed there were two sides in the debate over the Corrib gas project. One side favoured it and the other was opposed to the development. "What right does anyone have to abrogate the local community's right to be consulted?" Mr Dempsey asked.

"More than five people are involved in this process. A community is involved, and no one has the right to claim to speak for the entire community."

Mr Dempsey was referring to the so-called "Rossport Five", the men jailed last year for their opposition to the onshore pipeline.

Dr Cowley said Mr Dempsey was talking "complete nonsense. Those five men have the support of 99 per cent of the community. People do not wish to be blown up in their houses."

Dr Cowley, who raised the issue, said he was amazed at the Minister's comments that the mediation process was ongoing. "The Minister knows the mediation process is scuppered as it was he who scuppered it."

He said Mr Dempsey had told RTÉ's Morning Ireland radio programme that he had appointed a person agreeable to both sides to mediate between them and "that he would leave the matter to that person and the two sides to agree the format and framework of the mediation".

He said the Minister had then told Mid West Radio "that he never presented mediation as anything except a very wide process. The Minister has consequently scuppered the entire process."

He had treated this community in a terrible way, Dr Cowley added.

The Mayo TD said he had a compact disc with recordings "of the two contradictory statements the Minister made".

Mr Dempsey said he had "referred to two sides of the debate in this House and in press releases". Insisting that nobody had the right to speak for the entire community, Mr Dempsey said Dr Cowley "should represent the entire community and not just a small group of people".