Ms Suzanne Collins:

As Mr. Foley outlined, we are midway through a consultation that is unprecedented for EirGrid and probably the public sector in terms of its scale and scope. We are aware that we are putting a great deal of complex information in front of people, but the outcome will affect communities across the country. As such, it is critical that we have meaningful engagement. It is an ambitious all-island engagement programme and we want to make it as inclusive as possible. It is amplified by media - traditional print and broadcast with a focus on regional media, and social and digital media to increase our reach.

We have been holding a series of workshops and meetings across the country. They have been online due to Covid restrictions. We have leveraged our stakeholder partners in the delivery of this consultation. It has had a positive and powerful impact. For example, Irish Rural Link is hosting workshops for us with communities across the country. Chambers Ireland is doing the same with its business membership. We present at these workshops and answer questions. The National Youth Council of Ireland, NYCI, held a series of workshops, culminating in a youth assembly last Wednesday evening that Mr. Foley and Mr. Robbie Aherne from the project team attended. It was fantastic and well moderated by the NYCI. The challenge and questions coming back from the group of young people who were assembled were interesting and gave us much to think about. We had an industry forum the same week. It was for generation companies, developers and large energy users. There were approximately 250 attendees. Over the coming weeks, we will hold a civic society forum that brings together NGOs, academia and agricultural, community and environmental bodies. We will also hold a public forum that is modelled on the Citizens' Assembly to consider issues of recruitment, demographics, geographical balance and so on. There has been a great deal of political engagement in the form of meeting local authorities, sometimes before whole councils, sometimes before smaller groups depending on what they request.

We have had more than 80 dedicated stakeholder events at the midpoint of the campaign, covering business, civil society, statutory bodies, farming organisations and various other groups, and there have been more than 100 consultation submissions so far. We have tried to meet people where they are and give them the kind of information and level of engagement that they want and need. As Mr. Foley outlined, a great deal of work was done to make the information as accessible as possible. We worked with our partners in the National Adult Literacy Agency on the language to ensure that it was accessible. We also have a dedicated consultation portal, consult.eirgrid.ie. People can go to it and answer a series of questions. It tries to break down the technical information and make it as accessible as possible.

We are halfway through the campaign and open to whatever suggestions committee members might have about different forms of engagement or other groups that we need to meet. At the moment, however, we are happy with the level of engagement and response we are getting from groups. They are really engaged and have given us a great deal of interesting feedback.