Shell E&P Ireland has blamed "ongoing protests" over the Corrib gas pipeline for its decision to lay off 35 sub-contractor staff at the landfall site near Rossport in north Mayo.
The personnel affected are mainly engineers and surveyors, together with inshore vessel operators.
The company, which is expected to reply to Minister for Marine Noel Dempsey today over a breach of ministerial consents for pipeline work, has said that the situation with other contractors on the €900 million project is being kept "under review".
The company had stated a week ago that it was suspending operations on the pipeline, pending publication of a new safety report commissioned by the Minister. However, it said that protests at the pipeline landfall site at Rossport and at the terminal site in Bellanaboy were "blockading operations".
This had left it "with very little option" but to lay-off 35 workers employed with Tideway, a sub-contractor of Allseas, which is involved in work at the landfall site. Mark Carrigy, operations manager for Shell, said that situation was "most unfortunate as over 350 people are affected by the current protest". It had been anticipated that employment would rise to 1,000 by the end of this year, the company said.
Mr Carrigy said that "Shell and Tideway personnel had established excellent and professional relationships whilst working and living in the local community and it is with regret that they will be leaving the area".
Gardaí in Belmullet are still seeking a Tideway employee who failed to appear in court on July 13th charged with being drunk while in charge of a vessel, after four fishing boats were damaged at Ballyglass pier.
Mark Garavan, spokesman for the five men in prison, said the company was blaming protesters "to avoid liability to the contractors". Mr Garavan said that while any lay-offs were to be regretted, it "underlined the urgency to address the core issue here in relation to the safety of the upstream pipeline".
In a separate development, Labour Party leader Pat Rabbitte has accused Shell E&P Ireland of being "misleading and self-serving" in its stance on the continued imprisonment of five men over opposition to the pipeline
Mr Rabbitte, who met Minister Noel Dempsey on the issue yesterday, said legal advice he had received showed that "where a person is committed to prison for civil - as opposed to criminal - contempt of court, the committal must last until either it is purged or until it is waived by the party for whose benefit the order was made".
Mr Rabbitte said it was clear from judgments in two legal cases - Keegan versus de Burca in 1973 and the State versus McRann in 1977 - that Shell had the opportunity to waive its injunction without being constrained in the future.
Mr Rabbitte said he did not have the technical ability to conclude whether Shell should build its gas terminal offshore, and had been told by the company that this was not possible for reasons of cost and the safety.
However, an offshore terminal option could be pursued as part of mediated discussions between the men and Shell, he reiterated.
Mr Rabbitte said he believed that the Minister's officials would hold further talks with the company on foot of yesterday's exchange of views, in a bid to find a way to secure the men's release.
However, a spokeswoman for the Minister said that Mr Dempsey had agreed to convey views expressed by Mr Rabbitte and the Labour Party's marine spokesman, Tommy Broughan, to Shell through the normal channels.
