Michael Moynihan (Cork North West, Fianna Fail)
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I welcome the delegates from EirGrid. There seems to have been a complete turnaround in respect of the company's previous plans, which included a Grid South and Grid West. Why did EirGrid opt for this change in direction? Mr. Slye indicated that the new grid strategy has been tested to ensure it can deliver power into communities for the foreseeable future. How accurate is that prediction? Given that the new projections are so out of kilter with those we were given in 2007, notwithstanding that the latter were based on Celtic tiger data, how confident can we be about the new forecasts?

In the past three or four years, there has been huge fear, anxiety and concern among communities in locations where pylons were to be installed.

How can these communities be reassured this plan will not be resurrected in the next 12 months or in the next ten to 20 years? Has EirGrid new projections? Has it tested other technologies? Are these technologies foolproof? If the figures of 2007 were so wrong, how can we be assured they are right in 2015? How will EirGrid dispel the fears that there will be further attempts to install pylons in these communities? There needs to be clarity that the Grid West and Grid South projects are dead, so to speak. Does EirGrid have trust in the figure on which it is basing its projections? How much has this aborted project cost EirGrid and what was spent on advice and fees up to this point? Thousands of submissions were made against these proposals in 2013 and 2014 which were based on real concerns and anxieties. They were rubbished, for want of a better word, at the political level.

Given that the EirGrid figures for its projections were wrong in the past, why has it confidence in the current figures? How much money has been spent to date on the aborted EirGrid projects? Given that the agency is not proceeding with the other grid projects, is there money available to do a proper job and have an underground interconnector, given that it is now technically feasible to do a North-South underground interconnector and using the savings from other projects? By putting all the infrastructure underground EirGrid would be doing the correct thing by the communities in counties Cavan Monaghan and Meath.

With the permission of the Chair, I may ask further questions later.