Irish Minister for Energy Eamon Ryan (centre), protesting against the Corrib Gas Project, before the Green Party joined Ireland's government in mid-2007 Photo: indymedia.ie

On Tuesday, Asian business via the Asia edition of the Financial Times, woke up to a caption, "Desperate in Dublin," and a story from Mayo on how a "retired schoolteacher and a handful of hill farmers and lobster pot fishermen has frustrated Ireland's most important energy project." The story was headlined: "Irish grass roots clog Shell gas pipeline."

"Desperate in Dublin" was the caption of a photo of Finance Minister Brian Lenihan accompanying the story on the ranking of 19 of Europe's finance ministers, which we reported on yesterday.

"By now Corrib should be contributing hundreds of millions in revenue to the country, at a time when the money is badly needed. Ireland is just not equipped to deal with major industrial projects,"says Brian O'Cathain, who ran the Irish operations of Enterprise Oil when it discovered Corrib gas field, off the Mayo coast, in 1996, told the FT. Enterprise was acquired by Shell Oil in 2002.

The FT reported that an Bord Pleanála, Ireland's planning authority, dealt another blow to the development timetable, ruling that Shell would have to reroute part of its proposed seven-mile section of pipeline from the beach to the terminal because it runs too close to local homes.

The ruling was welcomed by Maura Harrington, the schoolteacher and representative for Shell To Sea, but she argued: "Ireland's real strategic interest would be in regaining control of our natural resources."

It's a luxury indeed in a country where foreign-owned firms are responsible for about 90% of its exports, and tens of thousands are unemployed, for people living on public funds, insisting that the State should control energy exploration.

The gas field is estimated to yield approximately one trillion cubic feet of natural gas over an operating life of fifteen to twenty years.

A report by Goodbody Stockbrokers in 2007 estimated that the project will contribute over €3bn to Ireland’s GDP (Gross Domestic Product) over its lifespan, supplying 60% of the country’s natural gas needs at peak production. 

There is a valid argument to be made on the very generous 1989 exploration license terms and the issue of safety is very important but there is more to the Rossport protests than that.

The FT reports that Father Kevin Hegarty, a brave local Roman Catholic priest, says the attitudes of some protesters are "reminiscent of those who campaigned against rural electrification in the 1950s and 1960s . . . they resist any change to traditional rural life."

Of course, there is a big difference to the 1950s.

Land compensation is said to have been one of the bones of contention and the small farmers have no problem being modern and accepting Common Agricultural Policy money from Brussels.

Besides, they also want to have the trappings of modern life.

How many encounter full petrol tankers on the roads everyday in West Mayo? About 40% of Irish electricity generation depends on gas piped from Scotland. Kinsale gas was piped from near Kinsale on the south coast to Dublin but if it had to be put miles from every house, how practical would it have been to build a pipeline?

Safety of course should be important in the Corrib project situation, but is delivery of gas into your home any more dangerous than having a pipeline near it?

The protestors fill their car tanks with petrol but to get it from Nigeria, Saudi Arabia or wherever to West Mayo, involves safety risks for many people. Maybe some of their paymasters, working at oil refineries in Hamburg or Rotherdam, are also taking big risks for them.

These protestors are another comfortable group that exhibits the selfishness that is so common in these times.

They want the advantages of  a society but no compromises.

Tens of thousands of their fellow citizens face a bleak future on the dole but they have guaranteed incomes from public funds while seeking to prevent a significant economic development for the embattled economy.