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Corrib Gas Pipeline – 5th December 2006

THE HIGH COURT
Record No: 840P/2005

BETWEEN:


SHELL E & P IRELAND LIMITED

Plaintiff

And

PHILIP MCGRATH, JAMES PHILBIN, WILLIE CORDUFF,
MONICA MULLER, BRID MCGARRY, PETER SWEETMAN

Defendants


And

THE MINISTER FOR COMMUNICATIONS MARINE AND NATURAL RESOURCES, IRELAND AND THE ATTORNEY GENERAL
Defendants to the counterclaim of second and fifth defendants

Update (5th December 2006)

1. The Judgement on the privilege issue motion was delivered today by Judge Smyth.

2. He ruled that the Plaintiff had not lost its legal professional privilege in the “attendance note”. His written judgement will become available later.

3. This is a finding in favour of the Plaintiff and means the defendants cannot use or refer to the “attendance docket” at the hearing of the action (if any), or the counterclaims.

The Medical Defence Union “MDU”

Our website has been criticised, indeed severely criticised, if not actually attacked. The criticism comes from the Medical Defence Union through its Dublin solicitors.

It alleges it has been defamed in our article (now deleted) and that the article contained several inaccurate statements.

We see, from the solicitors’ letter (to which we have made reply), there are a number of matters in our article with which the MDU do not take issue. They are:

a) “[MDU]… offers membership to doctors for a year. That may or may not be renewed.â€?

b) “Medical practitioner members are not contractually entitled to indemnity from the MDU; they are offered the benefit of the serious consideration of the MDU to extend an indemnity. That is, MDU will not lightly refuse an indemnity. If it does indemnify, it will behave just like an insurer, but if not, not.â€?

c) “A doctor and his/her patient must have certainty that, in the event of a claim of negligence, given the very high legal costs in establishing the fault or otherwise of the doctor, it cannot be left in doubt that an indemnity will be forthcoming for the claim and the costs associated with it.â€?

d) “The Irish Department of Health, on hearing of allegations of a lapse from high standards of corporate governance by MDU (the chief executive was in receipt of a higher salary than that of which the non-executive directors were aware), suggested in a letter to MDU that it might withdraw recognition of MDU as an insurer of general practitioners in the Department’s Medical Card Schemeâ€?

e) “The Solicitors Mutual Defence Fund Limited is a copycat version of the MDUâ€?

We have deleted the article pending receipt of justification, from the MDU, for its criticisms. If we have been unfair to the MDU we will admit that and apologise but otherwise we will assert our right to free speech.

We have no indication from the MDU that it does not regard its business as a matter of public interest.

Our article had cited authority for some of its contents and we have cited other authorities in our reply letter to the solicitors. We will keep readers informed.

Corrib Gas case – 22nd November 2006

THE HIGH COURT
Record No: 840P/2005

BETWEEN:


SHELL E & P IRELAND LIMITED

Plaintiff

And

PHILIP MCGRATH, JAMES PHILBIN, WILLIE CORDUFF,
MONICA MULLER, BRID MCGARRY, PETER SWEETMAN

Defendants


And

THE MINISTER FOR COMMUNICATIONS MARINE AND NATURAL RESOURCES, IRELAND AND THE ATTORNEY GENERAL
Defendants to the counterclaim of second and fifth defendants

Update (22nd November 2006)

1. The hearing of the privilege issue motion concluded before Judge Smyth.

2. He reserved his judgement and nominated the 5th December 2006 for delivery of the written judgement.

Corrib Gas case – 21st November 2006

THE HIGH COURT
Record No: 840P/2005

BETWEEN:


SHELL E & P IRELAND LIMITED

Plaintiff

And

PHILIP MCGRATH, JAMES PHILBIN, WILLIE CORDUFF,
MONICA MULLER, BRID MCGARRY, PETER SWEETMAN

Defendants


And

THE MINISTER FOR COMMUNICATIONS MARINE AND NATURAL RESOURCES, IRELAND AND THE ATTORNEY GENERAL
Defendants to the counterclaim of second and fifth defendants

Update (21st November 2006)

1. The privilege issue Motion came on for hearing in court 11 in the Four Courts on 21st November 2006.

2. The hearing will continue tomorrow from 11am.

Corrib Gas case – 15th November 2006

THE HIGH COURT
Record No: 840P/2005

BETWEEN:


SHELL E & P IRELAND LIMITED

Plaintiff

And

PHILIP MCGRATH, JAMES PHILBIN, WILLIE CORDUFF,
MONICA MULLER, BRID MCGARRY, PETER SWEETMAN

Defendants


And

THE MINISTER FOR COMMUNICATIONS MARINE AND NATURAL RESOURCES, IRELAND AND THE ATTORNEY GENERAL
Defendants to the counterclaim of second and fifth defendants

Update (15th November 2006)

1. The privilege issue Motion is listed for hearing before Judge Smyth in the Four Courts on 21st November 2006.

Dear Dermot Ahern

The EU Council Presidency has proposed the setting of the minimum age for recording and storing facial images and fingerprints in the chip of a passport.

It proposes that both images and fingerprint records on passports be compulsory from the age of 12 and be permissible below that age.

The decision is to be made in a Committee on which Ireland has a representative. Its original brief covered visas; it was extended to documents of non EU nationals in the EU; it then began to look at passports and is currently looking at EU ID cards

What is Ireland’s position on these questions Mr. Ahern?

Are we intent on fingerprinting our children?

Are we intent on fingerprinting everybody?

Why?

The Corrib Gas case – 10th November 2006

THE HIGH COURT
Record No: 840P/2005

BETWEEN:


SHELL E & P IRELAND LIMITED

Plaintiff

And

PHILIP MCGRATH, JAMES PHILBIN, WILLIE CORDUFF,
MONICA MULLER, BRID MCGARRY, PETER SWEETMAN

Defendants


And

THE MINISTER FOR COMMUNICATIONS MARINE AND NATURAL RESOURCES, IRELAND AND THE ATTORNEY GENERAL
Defendants to the counterclaim of second and fifth defendants

Update (10th November 2006)

1. The privilege issue Motion came on for hearing before Judge McMenamin in court 3 in the Four Courts on 10th November 2006.

2. The parties informed the court that neither the Plaintiff nor the 2nd and/or the 5th defendants had any objection to him hearing the Motion.

3. The judge acknowledged he had played a role in the action previously and said in those circumstances it would be better if another judge should deal with the Motion so that justice could be seen to be done. He emphasised he was not recusing himself from the Motion.

4. The Motion will be listed for mention in the Chancery list next Tuesday, 14th November 2006 and another judge will be assigned, one with no previous involvement in the case.

5. (Judge McMenamin committed, inter alia, the 2nd defendant to jail for contempt of court in the proceedings in 2005)

The Irish ePassport

Biometrics is the statistical analysis of biological data. A passport, therefore, cannot be a biometric passport, unless the meaning of biometrics has changed. A passport could be biometric if the purpose is the accumulation of statistics, not of one person or passport, but of many passports.

Passports, historically, were provided to travelers to ease their journey in foreign countries. A State document, requesting that the authorities abroad should help the traveler accorded with the fact that only States existed in public international law; individuals were not recognized (by and large still the case).

On that view the new Irish ePassport is a traditional document. It is addressed, effectively, to the USA. The United States of America will not assist Irish travelers unless they present a State document of request acceptable to the USA. Only an ePassport is acceptable.

However, it is not the Irish State that is of interest now to the USA, it is the traveler. Specifically, it is the identity of the traveler. Even more specifically it is the entire body of knowledge about each Irish traveler, to be embodied in every ePassport, which is of interest to the USA.

The ePassport is, presumably short for “electronic passportâ€?. The chip buried in the passport is a communications device. It can be read at a distance with suitable technology. It can be read anywhere in the world that the traveler goes to, not just at USA border or entry points. The information in it can, and will, form part of a huge database in the possession of the USA. Any US company or agency could become a collector of the information. It would not be necessary to see or handle the ePassport to download or transfer the information. It could happen at a car hire outlet or in an hotel. It could happen on a street.

The ePassport is a person’s barcode. It is the person’s identity.

The great era of identity theft is about to begin.

Hopefully, the first victim is not Minister for Foreign Affairs Dermot Christopher Ahern whose passport number is public property, displayed by him on the front page of the Irish Times of 17th October 2006.

Presumably he can at least be confident that it will not be stolen by Colonel Oliver North or Robert McFarlane (a.k.a. “Sean Devlinâ€?); he bears no resemblance to them.

What do their successors look like?

The Corrib Gas case (9th November 2006)

THE HIGH COURT
Record No: 840P/2005

BETWEEN:


SHELL E & P IRELAND LIMITED

Plaintiff

And

PHILIP MCGRATH, JAMES PHILBIN, WILLIE CORDUFF,
MONICA MULLER, BRID MCGARRY, PETER SWEETMAN

Defendants


And

THE MINISTER FOR COMMUNICATIONS MARINE AND NATURAL RESOURCES, IRELAND AND THE ATTORNEY GENERAL
Defendants to the counterclaim of second and fifth defendants

Update (9th November 2006)

1. The Plaintiff issued a Motion seeking the leave of the Court to serve a Notice of Discontinuance on the defendants. The return date for the motion was 1st November 2006

2. The Plaintiff sought an adjournment to make reply to an affidavit filed on behalf of the 2nd and 5th defendants.

3. The 2nd and 5th defendants indicated they intended to refer to a document over which the Plaintiff claimed a privilege and the court gave leave to seek the directions of the court as to whether privilege did attach to that document and whether the document could be used as intended.

4. That Motion (“the privilege issueâ€?) is listed for hearing before the court on 10th November 2006.

5. The Plaintiff’s Motion seeking the leave of the Court to serve a Notice of Discontinuance on the defendants is now adjourned to 16th January 2007.

6. The case is listed for mention before the court on 23rd November 2006.

12, City Gate

The website has a photograph from outer space showing our location in Dublin. (Courtesy of Google).

Here is a map of Dublin from a time before 1670. . We are very close to Bridge St., which carries its name in reference to the only bridge (5) over the Liffey at Dublin, (until 1670, when “Bloody Bridge” was built nearby).

The fragment of old city wall in modern Cook St., which is immediately downriver of the bridge inland on the south side, and the tributary stream entering the Liffey immediately upriver of the bridge, indicates our office is built on or beside the dried up bed of the tributary.


Dublin pre-1670
Current development, in St. Augustine St. beside us, helps to show this also. Portions of the soil, in the excavation for the basement of the development, show dark organic soil at some depth, as might be associated with river mud.We are therefore, just outside the city wall and gates, on the western side. This, compared with the eastern side, was the place to be.

Long before the building of “The Colledge” (Number 12 on the old map), the Normans took the city from the Danes in 1170. The king of the Danes was Hasculf. He fled by sea and returned a year later with 60 ships full of men. The complement of men included John the Mad, a berserker. Hasculf landed on the south bank, east of the city and formed up on land running from where “The Colledge” is shown, to Ringsend. They launched the attack on the city from the east, at Damas Gate (14) (Dame St.) but were thrown into confusion by an attack by a small force of cavalry on their rear, followed by a full scale assault pouring from the Damas Gate. John the Mad fairly acquitted himself but was overcome and Hasculf himself was captured. His surviving men fled by ship for their lives.At this point Hasculf revealed an aspect of his character typical of many people confronted by power; he vowed he would speedily return. He was promptly beheaded.Then, as now, the lawyers must have had their offices at the western gate.

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