When members of An Garda Síochána were recently caught on tape joking about the rape and deportation of women protesting against the Corrib gas project, the incident unleashed a wave of indignation. One of the targets of the Garda threats, Jerrie Ann Sullivan, a post-graduate student, spoke at a press conference in Dublin and a protest was organised outside the Dáil by the Rape Crisis Centre.
In the immediate aftermath of the revelations, the Garda Commissioner apologised to victims of sexual crime and the five gardaí who were involved in the incident have been confined to barracks until an inquiry is completed. In a country where just eight out of 100 reported rapes ended in conviction in 2009, the issue is clearly of the utmost gravity.
A week later, however, the official mood had changed. Garda Commissioner Martin Callinan raised the issue in his address to the annual Garda Representative Association conference, saying it was “important to put things in perspective.” Callinan then elaborated by condemning “people who are hell-bent on arriving in the west of Ireland with a propensity or an intention towards violence.” Callinan added that gardaí policing the Corrib Gas Project were doing a satisfactory and professional job.
It is a statement with which many local people would disagree vehemently.
Minister for Justice Alan Shatter, however, echoed these sentiments, criticising protestors who “exploited” the tape controversy “for their own ends.” This speedy shift from defence to attack was a return to business-as-usual, framing the Corrib conflict as a shadowy conspiracy by outsiders manipulating naïve locals for their own devious ends.

UNACCEPTABLE RISK
This, of course, wasn’t the first public intervention by a senior garda on the Corrib Gas issue. In June 2009, Garda Supt. Larkin described the conflict in the area, in rather grandiose terms, as “a battle for democracy”. “if we didn’t have some of the outside agitators coming in,” he proferred, “there wouldn’t be a problem with the handful of locals that oppose this.” So are the Gardai giving an accurate picture? Or is this mere propaganda?
During the early years of the protest, gardaí-community relations were reasonably good and the local Superintendent publicly assured protestors in 2005 that the force would remain ‘neutral’. In mid-2006 however, that attitude changed as senior gardaí began using militaristic terms, thereby setting the tone for violent confrontation.
“I felt that it was time to take the ground back,” said Supt. Joe Gannon, using language as if he was involved in an operation to ‘liberate’ the zone. “Once the war stops, we can converse with them [protestors] and cool things down,” added Garda Greg Bourke. The gardaí underestimated the determination and commitment of local people whose concerns about the safety of the project were vindicated by An Bord Pleanala experts in 2009, when it was announced that the project “posed an unacceptable risk” to the community.
Whatever about their public pronouncements, behind the scenes, the Gardai were doing little better. No real attempt was made by them to engage with the community or comprehend the nature and dynamic of the campaign. Before long, antagonism had reached fever pitch with both sides engaging in bitter verbal recriminations that are still being played out between gardaí and locals on first name terms. The occasional ‘days of action’ have indeed brought ‘outside agitators’ to the area, including members of the Green Party and Republican dissidents. However, they generally arrive and depart within 12 hours, exerting no lasting influence over events. It is local people who carry the torch after the others are gone.

COMPLAINTS IGNORED
Willie Corduff, one of five men jailed in 2005 for refusing to allow Shell access to his land, has peacefully opposed the project for over a decade. In April 2009, he crawled under a truck and refused to move until he was shown evidence that Shell had permission to restart work in the area. A number of gardaí attempted to pull him out from under the truck, grabbing his shoes and socks and almost taking his trousers off. Corduff alleges that a garda then beat his ankle with a rock to loosen his grip. Gardaí deny any wrong-doing. At least one of the gardaí at the centre of the current tape scandal – Sgt. James Gill and Garda Hugh Egan were named in the Donegal Democrat as having been transferred as a result of the tape allegations – was present during this alleged incident but did not touch Corduff.
Three months after the incident, Corduff’s ankle was still swollen and bruised and he needed the help of a stick to walk. When Corduff emerged from under the truck that night, he was allegedly beaten by private security guards employed by IRMS and working for Shell. Again IRMS deny any wrong doing on the part of their staff. Garda Supt. Tony McNamara broke the news to the media, as reported by Jim Cusack in the Sunday Independent: “Gardaí said Mr Corduff had complained of head and chest pains necessitating an ambulance… to travel out from Castlebar… no assault is being investigated by gardaí.”
So the Garda version was that Corduff had ‘complained’ of chest pains – which, for all anyone listening knew, might well have been a result of indigestion or a minor heart attack. The hospital records of Corduff’s complaints on admission, however, presented a dramatically different story: “He (Corduff) had been kicked all over the body and had LOC (Loss Of Consciousness). He had headaches, nausea and vomiting.” In this case there had been no cameras rolling to capture the scene and predictably the Corduffs have heard nothing more about their complaint.
That failure by the Gardai to investigate Willie Corduff’s extremely serious allegations notwithstanding, the Garda Ombudsman Commission has upheld as ‘admissible’ almost 75% of the 111 complaints about alleged gardai misbehaviour in the Corrib area, acknowledging also that the number – and the nature – of these complaints is unprecedented. But when seven of those same complaints travelled onwards to the office of the DPP, they came to a sudden halt; none were deemed worth of criminal prosecution.

BROKEN TEETH
Pat O’Donnell, a local fisherman, spent five months in prison last year, convicted – on the word of gardaí – of threatening them. A successful businessman with an award for bravery from the Ministry of the Marine, O’Donnell was described as a “thug and bully” by the presiding judge. Why would someone like O’Donnell, a citizen with an outstanding reputation in civic matters, end up on trial for allegedly threatening gardaí? In a statement presented to the Garda Complaints Board a former Amnesty International employee, Sarah Clancy, described an incident she had witnessed. “I saw the Garda pull the local man who had spoken with the quarry owner to the verge at the other side of the road... they flung him to the ground with first two then one Garda kneeling on his back and (they) pressed his face into the dirt all the while hitting him with batons... there were four Gardai at least involved in this...”
The local man was, of course, Pat O’Donnell who suffered broken teeth and ribs arising from that incident. In June 2009 one of Pat O’Donnell’s boats was sunk by persons unknown and once more gardaí, described by one legal professional as “the most secretive police force in the world”, rushed to the media. “Individual gardaí and Shell allege, privately, that both cases (O’Donnell and Corduff) were concocted by ‘the movement’ in a desperate attempt to garner support for the cause,” one reporter summarised – the clear implication being that Pat O’Donnell had scuppered his own boat.
Within 48 hours the gardaí had declared the ‘investigation’ all but completed. Disillusioned by his treatment at the hands of the Belmullet gardaí, O’Donnell then travelled to Westport to lodge a complaint against the security firm IRMS, arising from a separate incident. Supt. Pat Doyle, who took O’Donnell’s statement, subsequently retired from the force and took up employment with IRMS, fuelling suspicion that gardaí, IRMS and Shell are working too closely together. Indeed Doyle is not the only one to have crossed that line.
Johnny Carey, former Chief Superintendent of Mayo, also went to work for Shell as an advisor. Dr. Dermot Walsh, Professor of Law at UL, criticised such crossovers. “It is undesirable that senior gardaí on retirement would proceed to gainful employment with powerful economic groups in respect of whom they had recently been discharging sensitive and controversial operational policing activities,” he said. In the current climate of tension, local people suspect that the judgment of gardaí approaching retirement might be affected by their hopes of future employment with Shell and IRMS.
The culture of contempt toward local campaigners is also evident in numerous incidents which don’t get reported either to the media or the Ombudsman, yet wreak a psychological toll on the victims. Seanie McDonnell, an older school busdriver who lives beside the gas refinery, was arrested in June 2009 by plainclothes police in an unmarked car, as he finished off his daily run. McDonnell was taken to Ballina, an hour away, and instructed to watch film footage of protests in which detectives accused him of property damage. McDonnell was released without charge and nothing more was heard of the case.
While no one could have any problem with gardaí carrying out routine investigations and making arrests where deemed necessary, the breakdown of trust with the community means that every action is measured against the perception that policing in the area is primarily about forcing through an unpopular and unsafe project. On another occasion, a long term resident of the solidarity camp was surprised to hear that his parents, back home in Co. Kerry, had received a ‘friendly’ call from a local garda who expressed concern that their son’s safety might be at risk in Co. Mayo.

PEACEFUL SOLUTION
The Corrib Gas Project is a jigsaw puzzle of permissions and licenses which have raised planning doubts from start to finish. In 2002 the most comprehensive inquiry into the project, by An Bord Pleanála, concluded that the planned refinery was “the wrong project in the wrong place.” In a strange intervention, the then-Taoiseach Bertie Ahern immediately urged Shell to appeal the decision – which was subsequently overturned. A further oral hearing took place in 2009 which concluded that the pipeline posed “an unacceptable risk” to the local community. However the planning board, in the same breath, somewhat bizarrely signalled approval for the project on the grounds of strategic infrastructure.
The irony is that the community has declared its support for bringing gas ashore as long as it is done in a safe way. “I’ll hold the gate of my farm open myself,” commented Willie Corduff.
One might lament the sheer wastefulness of what has been happening. Had Shell, and indeed the Government, not behaved in an arrogant and dismissive way from the start, a solution acceptable to all might well have been found by now. Instead, Shell is beginning a two-year tunnelling process while simultaneously An Taisce brings a judicial review to challenge the legality of the decision to approve the gas pipeline.
A storm is brewing and the giveaway terms of the gas project have added further national outrage in times of deep recession. The only hope for a peaceful solution to the crisis lies not with gardaí but with the new government – which must take action before confrontation leads to something far worse. They must begin by initiating a review of the legitimacy of the entire project as it is currently configured.
In the meantime, the gardaí will continue to plunge in credibility if they act in effect as spokespeople and sponsors of the project. “The Gardaí have to ask themselves at what point the interests of the whole community are not being served by an endless drain of resources to protect the interests of a rich commercial developer,” said Dr. Dermot Walsh.
As for the rape threats – any attempt to depict them as less than extremely serious reflects very badly on those who have been offering apologies for the Gardai. Jerrie Ann Sullivan herself described them as deeply traumatic. However, she insisted on putting the threats in the context of the wider struggle. “This is not about us,” she said at the Shell To Sea press conference. “This is about women’s safety and about the ongoing intimidation of the communities living close to Shell’s inland refinery in Mayo.”
All in all, it’s been a very bad start for out new Minister for Justice – but he can redeem himself if he plays his part in initiating the necessary review...