Mr. Fintan Slye:

I will make two quick points before asking Ms Steen to comment. We listened to the feedback we received last year from communities and local people throughout the country. I also received some strong feedback from the joint committee during my previous appearance before it. During last year, we reviewed and examined our consultation process and how we engage with communities.

In December we published and made available a report and a review that included two independent external reviews on that subject. Central to this was a set of 12 commitments as to how we would improve our consultation and engagement in the future. We recognise that delivering large-scale linear infrastructure projects, no matter what their technological implementation, is incredibly difficult. It is a fact that they have an impact on communities and we need to learn continually and improve on how we engage with communities.

A key point is that we published our strategy in draft form to allow for comment over an eight-week period. It was not a case of us saying that this is the new strategy and this is the way it must be. It was us reflecting on what we had heard as we developed the individual projects and reflecting the changed circumstances in the economy. We put together a draft strategy for comment.

I refer to the Chairman's point about the role of consultation in the decision-making. We are quite clear that we are going into the Grid West project with three options. We have not decided which one and we do not have a predisposition towards one or the other. We have the independent expert panel to ensure that as we analyse the options and present the analysis of the options to the public, this is done in a fair, transparent and comparable way in order that people can see the trade-offs that are being made or that need to be made when a selection is being made from options. Ms Steen may wish to comment on public consultation.