Mr. Fintan Slye:

I thank Deputy Michelle Mulherin. There is not much with which I could disagree. One of the things coming through in the consultation process and, as I said, the comments here is the need for more detail around the underground option, in particular, for the Grid West and Grid Link projects. As I said, it has been studied in depth for the North-South project, but for the Grid West and Grid Link projects, the detail provided as part of the reports - the stage 1 reports - which looked at a number of options, including HVdc, does not seem to be sufficient or adequate to address the appetite among the public to understand all of the issues involved. Despite what has been a huge effort on our part in the consultation process, it obviously has not met that need and we need to recognise this.

The consultation on Grid Link is ongoing. We will come back to people very soon after the process is closed and articulate how we will deal with all of the concerns expresed. As I said, I hope we will be invited back by the committee early in the new year to talk about the changes we have made to all of the processes to address all of the concerns expressed, perhaps look back on what has been a difficult consultation process around large-scale and very important infrastructure and talk about how that feedback has been incorporated. I take the Deputy's comments on which we will reflect. They are very sensible and we will-----