David Cullinane (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the delegations. I am from Waterford and as such I am directly affected by this issue. I stand with all of the communities affected, including the organisations present today, who are rightly concerned about this project.

There has been much discussion on this issue thus far. Senator Landy asked Mr. Brannigan for his view on the consultation process. There is a need to inject some sense of reality into the debate on this issue. From my perspective the consultation process is flawed and will continue to be so for two reasons. First, the planning application from EirGrid, be it in respect of the North-South interconnector or the Grid25 project, if EirGrid gets to it, will bypass the normal planning process and go straight to An Bord Pleanála, which creates problems in the first instance. Second, the consultation process is flawed because in terms of national policy there is no hierarchy to deal with these issues. For example, we do not, as a State, have a preference for this project overground versus underground or vice versa. That is the main problem. As legislators, we should be facing up to our responsibilities to legislate in this regard. EirGrid can hide behind Government policy and the fact that we do not have a hierarchy of policy of preference in this area. Legislators have a job to do and need to focus on it. In my view, many politicians across all parties, at Oireachtas and local level, are rightly concerned about EirGrid's projects from a health perspective - I accept there are conflicting views in this regard - and in terms of visual impact and devaluation of land and so on. If we want to resolve this issue, we can legislate and change the parameters in terms of the planning process.

I support development of this project underground. Deputy Coffey's proposal from the south-east and Leinster perspective in terms of utilisation of the motorway network was interesting. There is already a cable system on the main Waterford to Cork and Waterford to Dublin routes. Why can these routes not be incorporated into the project? These are the issues on which we as legislators should be focused. I would like to hear the delegations' views of this issue. As long as the focus is on the failures of the consultation process we are not dealing with the elephant in the room. In my view, as legislators we have failed in our responsibility to ensure joined up policy in this area and to state that, like Denmark, our preference is for this project to be developed underground. If we were to do this, the game would change.

My advice to all of the campaigning groups is to delay this project as much as possible. Technology is changing all of the time. I recall EirGrid saying in 2007 that it was not possible to go underground and that it would be 21 times more costly to do so. It is now known it would be only three to three and a half times more costly and that is only in terms of the initial investment and does not take into account the long term savings in terms of energy lost if the project goes overground. We need to push for a cost benefit analysis on the project going underground versus overground, which analysis should be independent and based on a 40 or 50 year lifespan. We must as best we can delay this project using every possible avenue open to us to do so. I believe that technology is changing in favour of those of us who support the underground option.

As legislators, we must face up to our responsibilities, which in my view we have not done to date.