Pobal Chill Chomáin

Pobal Chill Chomáin (PCC, English: "People of Kilcommon", also informally known as Gas to Glinsk) is a pressure group based in the parish of Kilcommon, County Mayo, Ireland [http://www.mayonews.ie/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=4397&Itemid=38] . It emerged from the larger Shell to Sea campaign in April 2008. The main goal of Shell to Sea is that Royal Dutch Shell, StatoilHydro and Marathon Oil refine the Mayo gas offshore, as is done with Ireland's only other gas project, the Kinsale gas. This would mean it would no longer be necessary to transport raw, untreated natural gas at high pressure through inhabited areas to the intended refinery site at Bellanaboy.

After many years of campaigning aginst Shell and the Irish government (see Corrib gas controversy), PCC have put forward a proposal that the refinery site be moved to Glinsk, a large uninhabited area a few miles to the east of the intended pipeline route and refinery. This would allow Shell and its partners the cost saving of refining the gas on land, while rerouting the pipeline away from inhabited areas. The proposal was publicly backed by Labour Party president Michael D. Higgins, Bishop of Killala, Dr. John Fleming, and local Fine Gael Teachta Dála Michael Ring.

Some members of the Rossport Five are part of the group (Vincent McGrath is its chairman), which is more localised to northwest Mayo than Shell to Sea. A large number of those involved with the new campaign comes from the parish of Kilcommon, which includes the refinery site and all of the intended pipeline route. Many involved with PCC have resumed their involvment with Shell to Sea, as Shell and the government rejected the PCC proposal.

PCC concentrates more on political lobbying and legal avenues than physical protest, and have submitted an application to the European Commission seeking an injunction suspending State consents for the Mayo gas project. It publicly supports some Shell to Sea protest actions, but not all.

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