Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I appreciate the facilitation of this meeting by the Chairman. My colleague, Deputy Moynihan, who is our party's spokesperson, is unable to be here due to another meeting this morning. I welcome Ms Marron and her colleagues and thank them sincerely for their presentation and for the huge amount of work in which they have been engaged over the past eight years or more. I recognise the presence of Councillors McElvaney and Keelan here as well. I had a call just before the meeting from Councillor Seamus Coyle, who was unable to make the meeting on time due to a family commitment. I want to recognise that all councillors of all parties and none throughout County Monaghan have been very supportive of the work of the County Monaghan anti-pylon committee.

Ms Marron referred in the concluding remarks of her detailed and fair presentation to the absence of fair play and equality of treatment in the case of the North-South interconnector compared with the Grid West and Grid Link projects. She called for a proper independent review and proper consultation. Sadly, such consultation has been lacking to date. This was a constant theme at last week's meeting of the joint committee. Along with my colleagues, I put it to the officials from EirGrid that people in counties Monaghan, Cavan and Meath should not be treated as second-class citizens and denied proper consultation.

I was glad that the chief executive of EirGrid agreed with my colleague, Deputy Moynihan, that the undergrounding of these transmission cables would be feasible "from an engineering and technical perspective". That was a very important response to Deputy Moynihan's question. It was estimated or quoted some years ago, perhaps in 2009, that the cost of undergrounding would exceed the cost of installing overhead lines by a multiple of 20. The chief executive of EirGrid said last week that the cost of undergrounding had decreased to the point at which it is now a very small multiple of the cost of providing overhead lines. I think that has to be taken into consideration as well.

It is worth reiterating three strong points that Ms Marron made in the presentation she gave on behalf of her colleagues on the anti-pylon committee. She said that the committee's detailed research, which stands up to the utmost scrutiny, shows "there will be no security of supply issues in Northern Ireland until at least 2021 [or well beyond that]; there is currently no operational bottleneck; [and] the €30 million saving is illusory". This committee, EirGrid, the Department of Communications, Energy and Natural Resources and the Government need to take those important points into consideration before any attempt is made to advance this project.

As I said earlier, we gave EirGrid a clear message last week that it is not acceptable to treat people in our region as second-class citizens. We are glad that a meaningful review has made the situation much more acceptable for people in the west, the south east and the midlands by comparison with the proposal they were initially presented with. As Ms Marron has outlined, all we are asking for is a proper and independent review, as opposed to what was merely an add-on to another review. This add-on meant nothing, in effect, because it did no more than kick the can down the road for some time.

Before I got an opportunity to speak last week, a question was asked about the devaluation of land and property. I found it incredible that Mr. Fitzgerald, who is a member of EirGrid's senior management team, responded to that question by referring to an international qualitative assessment. I said last week that it beats Banagher to think that an international qualitative assessment is needed. I will repeat today what I said last week to the EirGrid people. I told them they should go down to any suckler farm or farmyard where a man or woman milks 40 or 50 cows a day. Farms of this size and type are prevalent in our counties.

The disruption that would be caused by the placing of pylons right in a farm or community is evident. It would mean that farmers would have to change their entire farming practices in terms of going about their daily chores. It would make dairy farming impractical. We are also aware of the huge damage that would be done to the landscape from the point of view of the local people living in the area and also from the point of view of tourism and the protection of the heritage we have inherited. I totally support the committee's request for a proper, independent review. That is absolutely essential. The answers that were elicited from EirGrid following questioning from members last week demonstrate clearly that the undergrounding of this project is feasible from an engineering point of view. It is also feasible from the point of view of cost. At one time the proposed cost was alleged to be 37 times that of a pylon-based project, but that multiple has decreased from 20 to ten to seven, and it is now an even smaller multiple when we get the correct figures. I again welcome Ms Marron and the presentation by the committee and commend its members on its ongoing work on this very important issue for the people of the north east.