Mr. Nigel Hillis:

One might need to change the legislation, which says EirGrid is the transmission systems operator, TSO. EirGrid is responsible to nobody, is controlled by the Commission of Energy Regulation, CER and we are not sure if it has to answer to the Minister on how it designs and lays its power lines. To answer the question on running the power lines along the motorways, there are no motorways in County Monaghan.

Somehow 50 m has become an accepted distance between dwellings and the pylons and power lines but we do not know where this 50 m comes from. In Northern Ireland the distance is 75 m for the exact same line. Here is a quote from Northern Ireland Electricity's submission to the public inquiry:

100 m distance has been established as a general guide in order to address concerns relating to visual amenity. The 100 m distance has been proposed as, at this distance for a property located on level ground with a garden extending to 15 m from the house, a 10 m tall tree at the end of the garden will screen views of 55 m tall towers located at 100 m from the property. While these towers applicable to the proposed overhead line (the Northern Ireland section) are up to 42 m in height and are not as tall as those discussed in the Beauly-Denny line, the principles of this approach are still relevant and when these principles are applied to smaller tower heights of up to 42 m, the distance at which screening would not be effective when reduced to 75 m.

No matter how stupid and silly that reason is to pick those distances, at least it is some sort of reason, but EirGrid has given no reason whatsoever why it has picked 50 m.