Madam, - While on fishery business about 50 kilometres north of Bergen, Norway, recently I was impressed by a modern museum and marine cultural centre built in the style of the old fishermen's houses, but of course much larger.
On inquiry I learnt that this, a kindergarten, a home for the elderly and a new school had been built by the Oygarden kommune from local taxes paid by Statoil.
This company is 75 per cent State-owned and also pays national taxes on its profits, but because it is bringing piped gas to two local land points it also contributes to local taxation.
A member of the Bergen port authority, which has extensive coastline controls, told me that the only local objection to the pipelines was that the people regretted that the gas was all exported, mainly to Holland, without being processed in their district, where jobs were required.
Further north the local people also benefited from local taxes from the landing of a Statoil oil pipeline.
The solution to the Mayo problem, in my view, is to pipe the gas to Killybegs, where grossly unfair EU fishery laws have ravaged what until recently was Ireland's richest local coastal community. - Yours, etc,
ARTHUR REYNOLDS, Seapoint Avenue, Blackrock, Co Dublin.