I am well aware of the 14 years of difficulty in respect of bringing to shore the Corrib gas field. I understand tunnelling finished in recent days, the tunnel will be backfilled-----

Has the Taoiseach finished tunnelling?

He is going directly down.

-----the pipe to bring the gas ashore will be put in and gas should flow from the Corrib field within the next six months or so. This is to be welcomed.

I am also aware of and have had occasion in the past to visit members of the Rossport and Pollatomish area when they were in Wheatfield prison. I have had engagement with them over the years. I have also had engagement with the many Irish people who have been working on the site over the past 14 years. I am not aware of the minutes of the Shell committee meeting in London before this began, but I am aware that when this was first put in place by Enterprise Oil, it was badly handled in the beginning on many sides. As one more notable than I stated, were one to do things again, one might do them very differently or some things not at all.

Was that Deputy James Reilly?

In any event I welcome the fact the standards employed in the Shell development are of the highest. In the area in the past 14 years, 200 to 2,000 people have been working on a daily basis-----

And a €1 billion investment, which should be welcomed.

-----which has been a very significant financial and economic injection into the locality which I know very well. I hope the field will be brought ashore for the benefit of the people in the next 12 months.

Thank you.

Given all of the files which exist on this, all of the court cases and all of the decisions made on it, I do not agree with Deputy Daly that there should be a full public sworn inquiry into policing efforts at the Shell development in Bellanaboy.

The Taoiseach has very much clarified matters for his constituents, which is probably one of the reasons Fine Gael now has diminished representation on Mayo County Council. He seems to be very well versed with the propaganda of Shell, as is his colleague sitting in front of me, Deputy Grealish. Perhaps he got this information on his visit in February when he took time out to go to Shell and meet it on site. He has not shown the same enthusiasm to meet people in the area, such as Mrs. McGrath in whose kitchen he felt comfortable enough to make a cup of tea on a previous occasion. This woman, who is 73, was manhandled by 30 gardaí outside her pub in the early hours of the morning between 1 a.m. and 5 a.m. less than ten days ago.

A supplementary question please.

She was the subject of Garda manhandling. The Taoiseach told us previously that the acting Garda Commissioner represents a new police force. Will the Taoiseach make contact with this family, in whose kitchen he drank tea before he reached his elevated status, and ask them what happened? The man in the house had a stroke over what went on. He was in his bedroom listening to his wife being manhandled on the street by gardaí. Young gardaí jeered at him and made fun of him knowing about his health and asking him to come down.

We are over time.

Will the Taoiseach once and for all deal with these issues in the area? Will he tell us how this possibly represents a new Garda force? Is it not indicative of what we have been stating, that the force needs to be stood on its head if one is to get to the truth and have a proper police service which does not act as hired hands for a multinational company, which the Taoiseach prostituted himself in front of, but-----

I ask the Deputy to put her supplementary question, please.

-----instead serves constituents and residents?

Outrageous language.

I do not know whether the Deputy knows all of the people down there in the locality but I know most of them. The vast majority of those who caused all the trouble in Bellanaboy were not from the area. They were imported serial protesters who went out of their way to cause trouble-----

Who was there last Sunday?

-----and who cost the taxpayer €20 million to €25 million in Garda overtime costs, one of whom died in the middle of all this. I do not accept the Deputy's argument that all of this trouble is caused by people from the locality. I have been in many of their houses, and I went there recently to look at the standards employed and to speak to Irish engineers and environmental engineers whose careers depend on the standards and quality of work they have implemented. Deputy Daly would be welcome there to see the standards. I respect the difficulties faced by local families but the company has worked with local communities in many areas providing opportunities for young people through scholarships to fulfil their educational potential and other community issues and it has grown with the communities.

So all of the human rights organisations are wrong.

It has the worst human rights record in the world. The Taoiseach should go to Nigeria where Shell had somebody assassinated.

Are Archbishop Desmond Tutu and the UN wrong?

Deputies Daly and Halligan do not want to see the product of the Corrib field coming ashore.

Sorry, would you please remain silent? Thank you.

It had Ken Saro-Wiwa executed in Nigeria a few years ago.

Deputy Clare Daly should note I will welcome very much the day on which Corrib gas flows through to the terminal in Bellanaboy.

Thank you.

It has provided an economic lift and injection-----

A billion euro.

-----that in many ways has shielded that locality from the recession which has affected the rest of the country. On many occasions, up to 2,000 men were working around the clock in providing a terminal.

Thank you.

For the benefit of the people of Norway. They get the profit.

Deputy Daly and her fellow Deputies have never referred to how people have built their houses and paid off their mortgages or to the upskilling and training for young people not just to work on that plant, but on so many others. The benefits of this will be seen when the gas actually flows-----

Who will get the gas?

I will welcome the day on which it will flow because from my own experience, I can testify to the quality of the work that has gone in there, the standards that apply and the lessons that have been learned. Lessons have been learned, not least of which was-----

They were not learned last Sunday night.

Thank you, Taoiseach.

------that people from outside my own county travelled very long distances from outside the country-----

Nobody was there on Sunday night, except 30 gardaí.

-----to give vent to their professional protester hysterical screeches on the road outside Rossport.

That completes Leaders' Questions for today. Could I remind Deputies that it is extremely difficult to ask somebody to sit in this Chair and to try to be fair to everybody when a time limit has been imposed which obviously is not suitable? I appeal to them to change the rules in order that we can stay within the rules and not have me interfering and interrupting on an ongoing basis.

Hear, hear.

We now are nearly 20 minutes over time and this is not the way to do business. It does not suit me or my temperament to be interrupting people on a continuous basis. Moreover, to ignore the Chair is even worse, whoever is in it.

Hear, hear.

Shocking.

We do not need any smart remarks either from the sidelines.