the rossport five march in dublin, october 1st, 2005.

on june 29, five men from county mayo - brendan philbin, vincent mcgrath, willie corduff, philip mcgrath and michael o seighin - were imprisoned for refusing access to shell staff to start construction works on their land.

because these men and many others in rossport refused permission, shell took out an injunction preventing them from continuing their protests.

when the men did not comply with this court order, shell sought the irish state to commit the group of five to prison. rather than promise to stop their campaign, these five men have accepted their imprisonment.

shell's proposal is to transport unprocessed gas from a well 60 km off the irish coast to a refinery 9 km inland. the 9 km pipeline will operate at exceptionally high pressures. the question of appropriate safety distances is at the core of the dispute. how far away from houses should a pipeline be when its operating pressure is from 120 to 150 bar and it could, in certain scenarios, reach 345 bar? the design code used for the proposed pipeline suggests that for pressures of 345 bar, the pipeline should be no closer than 170 metres to the nearest inhabited dwellings. in the case of the proposed rossport pipeline, houses are 70 metres away.

the pipeline is exempt from requiring planning permission and is excluded from the remit of the irish health and safety authority and the environmental protection agency. the rossport five and their supporters believe that if the gas is processed off-shore then these problems can be solved. is that too much to ask of shell and the irish government?

the rossport five were released on september 30th 2005. the case and the issues surrounding it have not been resolved.