Mr. Nigel Hillis:

The argument we put forward at the last planning oral hearing was that this development is not appropriate or sustainable to the area in which it is proposed to be sited. That is what planning is all about. We will make the same argument at the next oral hearing. It is not an appropriate development for the area. We will also argue the question of scale because in our view 1,500 MVA is not required.

At the last oral hearing we did not dispute the need for the second interconnector. That was never disputed. However, we now dispute the scale of it. In 2008, peak demand was 5,000 MW. It was projected that in 2025 peak demand for the Republic of Ireland would be 8,000 MW.

In Northern Ireland it was set at 2,000 MW. This would mean 10,000 MW of peak demand for the island of Ireland. These figures dropped down and changed unbelievably, and have started to rise again very slowly. Current projections are that in 2025 there will be only 5,300 MW on the island of Ireland. In this context we must question the need for the scale of the project, particularly given that the other projects were downgraded from 400 kV.