Six Mayo landowners were restrained by High Court orders yesterday from interfering with the laying by Shell E&P Ireland Ltd of a gas pipeline across their lands.
The interlocutory injunctions will continue until the full hearing of proceedings brought by Shell against the six, or until a further order of the court.
The company says the €900 million Corrib gas project is intended to be commissioned in October 2007. When in full production, Shell says it is envisaged the development will provide 60 per cent of the country's gas requirements.
The gas field is 65 miles off the Co Mayo coast. It is intended that a pipeline will take the gas to land and then through a nine kilometre onshore underground pipeline to a gas reception station where it will be processed and fed into the national gas grid. The High Court hearing relates to a portion of the onshore section of the pipeline.
The action arose after the Minister for the Marine and Natural Resources made compulsory purchase orders to enable the pipeline to be constructed overland.
Shell sought restraining orders and damages when it alleged the six people obstructed its work.
The company claims there are about 30 landowners along the nine-kilometre route and 23 had consented to the work being carried out and had been compensated under an agreement with the Irish Farmers Association. Six of the remaining seven, it is alleged, physically obstructed attempts by Shell personnel to embark on work.
The restraining orders granted yesterday are against Philip McGrath, James B. Philbin, Willie Corduff, Monica Muller and Bríd McGarry, all with addresses at Rossport South, Ballina, and against Peter Sweetman, with an address at Grosvenor Road, Rathmines, Dublin, and stated to be an occupier of Ms Muller's property.
The company had claimed that if work did not start by June 1st, it would incur substantial losses.
The six defendants had argued that it appeared there might not have been a valid consent given by the Minister for the pipeline. A recent parliamentary question had referred to an application for consent being reactivated and being presently under consideration.
In his decision yesterday, the President of the High Court, Mr Justice Joseph Finnegan, said the Minister's consent and the compulsory purchase orders were at the root of the case and raised very significant questions about property rights and concerns about the environment, planning, health and safety.
He proposed to accord to Shell a right to lay the pipes. However, the company would have to secure a further order before it had a right to use the pipes. In deciding there was a fair issue in the proceedings to be tried, the judge said he was required at this stage to presume that the statutes which conferred powers on the Minister were constitutional.
The court at this time also should take the view that the Minister and An Bord Pleanála were in a far better position than the court to decide that matters had been properly conducted, the judge added.
He gave the six defendants liberty to apply to the court and asked the company to undertake that there would be minimum interference with the defendants' rights. During the hearing over two days last month, Ms McGarry said the State had given away offshore exploration-rich territory to oil companies for a pittance.