Ms Ann Murphy:

I thank the joint committee for inviting me to this meeting and apologise for my late arrival; I was caught in heavy traffic. Having listened to the discussion, I propose to address a number of points. It should be noted that I can only speak for my local area. On tourism, if the project proceeds, it will result in one Department spending money on tourism promotion, while a second spends money on decimating our tourism industry.

We are then going to have another Department spending budgets and decimating our tourism industry. I am from New Ross and €2 million has been spent over the past few years upgrading the town with €1.2 million spent on the Kennedy homestead. Over the years, €20 million has been invested in tourism locally. One of the corridors will be as close as 500 metres from the outskirts of the town. The town and its hinterland are dependent on tourism. EirGrid or whoever the picked the corridor did not give any thought to that.

The second issue I would like to raise is the visual impact of the pylons on the countryside. Every county has a development plan in place. Such plans set out the guidelines and objectives for development and proper planning in the area. I am disturbed by EirGrid's blatant disregard for the importance of the sensitivity of the landscape set out in the development plan. For example, in our hinterland, one of the corridors traverses two landscapes of greater sensitivity as outlined in our county development plan while there are two more adjacent to a corridor in our area. There are also SACS and proposes NHAs, for example, the border between counties Wexford and Carlow. It is a Deise valley and an area steeped in history. It would be an appalling sight to have pylons traverse this area and it would devastate tourism.

The inhabitants of the landscape were referred to earlier. Our community was invited to submit our viewpoints on the draft county development plan. This was then amended but EirGrid has scant disregard for country development plans and for our beautiful countryside, which will be ruined. In turn, our tourism industry will be ruined by this project.