Mr. Peter Smith:

I thank the Chairman and committee members for inviting us here today. I have been asked to represent Faugheen, a small village in the Suir Valley. Any settlement below 1,000 people is not considered a constraint to the Grid Link project, and the population of our village is less than 200. As a result, the K2 pylon corridor drives straight through the heart of our village. Faugheen is not just a village; it is at the centre of a rural community. I do not have time to paint a full picture; suffice to say that I know that many committee members come from and represent communities just like ours, so they know what Grid Link will do to us. Faugheen is a link in a chain from Cork to Waterford and up to Kildare, and we are all in this together. We are not backward-looking and we are all for progress, but progress, by definition, must be forward thinking, and the legacy we leave must be one of which we can be proud.

We have genuine concerns about the effects that Grid Link will have on community employment, agriculture, tourism, nature, the environment, heritage and culture. Our anxieties about health and property devaluation are absolutely valid and based on truth and must not be disregarded by EirGrid, nor by the Government. As for community gain, all we see at the moment is loss. The true cost of these pylons must be brought to light, so we are asking this committee to plead with the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources to call a halt to the current process so that other options such as underground cabling can be re-examined using the latest information and in an open and transparent manner. In its current form, Grid Link will bludgeon its way through the heart of all of our communities, because neither EirGrid, the Department of Communications, Energy and Natural Resources nor the Government can see a true picture of us on a map.