John Kelly (Labour) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the EirGrid team. I have been watching the proceedings in my office for the past hour and a half. I have a number of questions to which I want answers. There are also a number of observations I wish to make. Following the submission made by Deputy Michelle Mulherin, I believe the Minister would be agreeable to a cost benefit analysis of all three projects. The Minister has said that it is not necessarily accurate to say that if the North-South Interconnector costs three times more to go underground that would be site-specific to Grid West. Will EirGrid conduct an independent analysis of each of those projects?

The witnesses repeatedly say EirGrid cannot go underground for long lengths. Why is that the case? Will EirGrid issue a full report as to the reasons in order that it can be reviewed independently by somebody outside of EirGrid on behalf of the committee?

At all of the consultation processes that I attended, EirGrid continually denied this had anything to do with wind energy. At each consultation process EirGrid said it has nothing whatsoever do with it. When Mr. Fintan Slye was pressed on the issue he mentioned the wind for export. The Grid West project is there to complement the wind energy sector.

Slogans which are selling points state that this is needed for balanced regional development. We do not see balanced regional development outside of Dublin and the major cities here. If we did, projects like this might be more palatable. In my home town, EirGrid say we need the energy. The largest user of electricity in Ballaghaderreen, County Roscommon, is Arriva, formerly Shannonside, which uses more electricity than the whole of Castlebar. It has installed its own biomass plant to deal with its needs, therefore it does not need the energy.

Mr. John O'Connor said he would not live beside a pylon. Why should anybody be asked to live beside one, if he or se is not willing to do so? Surely his words have damaged the EirGrid project. I do not know if EirGrid understands the huge anger there is over this and the fact that people are getting mobilised on the issue. The delays here will cost quite an amount. In any cost benefit analysis are the costs of the delays being factored in?

The whole consultation process has been seriously flawed. EirGrid should start again. In my area, EirGrid sent out 10,000 letters that were never received. All it wants to do is blame An Post while An Post said it never got the letters to send out. To date, I have not got an answer as to where those 10,000 letters to households went missing. When I get an answer to the following question, I may have to come back to it. Who is funding this project?