Mr. Fintan Slye:

Sure, and in the case of specific cases like that, we will engage with people on them. I hope this addresses that issue.

Deputy O'Donovan asked whether we had employed consultants. We have consultants employed across the Grid25 programme. They assist us with the consultation process and the routing process and we use them for deep expertise in areas such as ecology and the like as we prepare planning applications and go out to consultation. We discussed earlier the issue of the contract costs for each consultant but I am not in a position to provide information on how much we pay specific consultants. That is a commercial matter between us and those consultants. The Deputy also asked about our ongoing reporting to the board, so that is fully briefed on the Grid25 programme in general and specific projects, in particular the three projects most of this conversation has been about. The EirGrid board has a specific committee, the grid infrastructure projects committee, established to ensure that there is monitoring and oversight of all of the projects and that EirGrid is up to date on where they are.

In her contribution, Deputy Mulherin made some good suggestions on how to improve the consultation process. We have put a consultation process of an unprecedented scale in place and have attempted to engage with people and communities across the affected regions. We continually look for ways to improve that process. I would encourage people to respond to the ongoing consultation, not just in terms of the specific questions asked but to put forward suggestions. We will take on board suggestions on how to improve the process and will get back to people on their concerns. At each stage of the project we reflect on how the consultation went and review it. We will continue to do that and will continue to examine how we can improve our processes to meet the needs of communities. We do that on a continual basis.