Helen McEntee (Meath East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The problem I and many other people have is that when the consultation process started again, many overground routes were proposed but no regard was had to whether undergrounding was feasible, or whether it would cost three times or 20 times as much. No underground route was given to people along with the overground routes that were proposed. That is the problem here. If this issue had been raised and addressed, there would have been a possible underground route, even if it would have cost 20 times as much. Perhaps some of the proposed route could have been overground and some of it could have been underground. It was not there. That is the issue. Many people are angry and annoyed that hundreds of thousands of euro were spent on oral hearings over five or six years without an underground option being offered at the end of that process. That needs to be addressed. We need to see that happen as we move forward because it has not happened to date. It may happen in the cases of the other routes that are now being proposed, but it has not happened in the case of the North-South interconnector. Many people do not agree with this process because they were not presented with an underground route. The main issue was not addressed.