Mr. Owen Bannigan:

We are more advanced in Monaghan, the north east and other counties. I say that with due respect. The question put by Deputy Moynihan was whether we considered the consultation to be a true attempt to engage. EirGrid’s consultation is about ticking boxes that are necessary to present a planning application to the board under the Planning and Development (Strategic Infrastructure) Act. That is all it is about.

I could speak for hours on end about EirGrid’s consultation. Suffice it to say that in 2007, a little article appeared in a local newspaper to say that there was consultation in a local town. That was the first we ever heard about it, yet the North-South interconnector was agreed by regulators North and South in 2006. At that time consultation should have started. We were never afforded the opportunities being afforded in grid south about the overall area. The planning application failed in 2010 and had to be withdrawn from the system, but we were never given the opportunity other groups are being given. That has been a major issue for us in Monaghan. I accept the point that other groups are not happy with the level of consultation.

Last night on “Prime Time”, Mr. Slye said: “I can commit to people that where they engage with us that we will get back to people and we will tell them how we have taken on board their feedback in a completely open and transparent way.” That is a direct quote from last night’s programme. In Monaghan, we organised three consultation days for EirGrid in the county when the re-evaluation report was published. Huge numbers engaged. Prior to that people had no interest in engaging with EirGrid because it was not believed or trusted. Two weeks after the consultation, the final route solution report was made public. All the issues the 600 plus people had raised were listed in an appendix at the back of the report. That tells us that it was simply a tick-box exercise. The final evaluation report was sitting on a shelf and ready to be published when the consultation period was over. We had raised fundamental issues about health concerns such as autism and children with special needs and they were not addressed or acknowledged in the report and no effort was made to deal with them.

That is what is happening. In contrast to the spin that we hear from EirGrid officials, their consultation is a total failure, but they mean it to be a total failure. EirGrid will consult on the basis that it is putting a pylon in a person's field and it will ask whether he or she has a preferred location for it. To the reply that he or she does not want it in the field, EirGrid states that is not an option, it is going in the field, so does the person have a preferred location as to where to put it? The agency does not want to hear about visual impact, environmental issues, human environmental issues or property devaluation. It dismisses these as issues on which it does not want to engage. Those are the facts.

My last point relates to the question about EirGrid's response to the expert group. The committee's predecessor, the Joint Committee on Communications, Natural Resources and Agriculture, had EirGrid, the expert commission and groups from around the country before it. At that stage, it was Ratheniska, North East Pylon Pressure, NEPP, and ourselves. There was a good level of engagement. Exactly four days after EirGrid appeared before the committee, it appeared at a meeting of Monaghan County Council. Under questioning from members of Monaghan County Council, EirGrid stated that the independent expert group's report did not go far enough, its terms of reference did not allow the group to take an in-depth look at the Irish transmission system, what might have been suitable for Europe was not suitable for Ireland, and while there was merit in that independent report, it did not go far enough and it was a job that was not completed. We immediately wrote to the Oireachtas joint committee asking that EirGrid be questioned on what it stated at Monaghan County Council. I am aware the committee contacted EirGrid and I believe it received a response. We contacted the joint committee looking for that response and we were told we could not get it.

That is where that point comes from. It does not make much sense to us that the response could not be in the public domain. It was not something that was made up. It was a statement. It was said. The newspaper reporter who was at that meeting made front page coverage of it. We forwarded that newspaper cutting to the joint committee as well. That is where that comes from. As far as we are concerned, that response has been treated confidentially. If that is the way it has to be, that is fine. That forum was held in public, but not whatever engagement happened afterwards.