Mr. Fintan Slye:

For Grid West we have a fully underground option as well as overhead options. The Deputy is correct in that regard.

The Deputy asked why we have changed Grid Link now. Grid 25 was initiated in the context of the 2007-2008 grid development strategy. We obviously reviewed the project at each stage and published those reviews as part of the various consultations that we carried out. The drop-off in electricity demand did not happen in 2007 or 2008. It did not actually happen until 2010-2011. The demand curve is set out in the grid development strategy to which the Deputy referred, namely the Your Grid, Your Views, Your Tomorrow document. We have included both the historical and projected demand growth figures in that document and members will see that it was not until a significant period after the economy went through such a shuddering that demand fell. We continually review the project.

I referred earlier to the specific commitment we made to make a side-by-side comparison between the underground and overhead options at the start of 2014. That, coupled with the review of the overall grid development strategy, allowed us to identify the regional grid option and the use of serious compensation which, with advances in control systems technology, allow it be deployed on smaller transmission system than the thousands of kilometres that it had previously been used on in other parts of the world. Those advances in technology, coupled with the fact that the demand had declined in real terms and that there was a shift in the make-up of the economy, allowed us to identify that as an option and to progress it and bring it forward. It would not have worked in the context of the high growth rates of previous years.

In the context of the North-South interconnector, the Deputy asked two questions. The first was why the regional option will not work for that project. The regional option involves maximising the utilisation of an underlying mesh transmission network. It involves pushing more power through a mesh transmission network by deploying the newer technology on some of the transmission lines. In the context of addressing the need to transfer power between the Munster region and the Leinster region, broadly speaking, there is an extensive mesh transmission network that has been built up there since 1927 which can be utilised.

In the case of a North-South interconnector project, however, two transmission grids were developed separately over time in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. These are currently joined by a single interconnector. Quite simply, there is no underlying mesh transmission network that can be maximised. In other words, the network on which we might deploy this technology in order to allow it to work just does not exist.

Deputy McEntee commented on the extent of the examination of the underground option for the North-South project. I referred earlier to the fact the Government appointed an international expert commission to review the project and that this commission submitted its report in 2012. We did an extensive analysis on a specific route, a detailed technical, environmental and economic analysis, which we also published. Further to that, the then Minister, Deputy Rabbitte, requested that the independent expert panel, which he had appointed, chaired by Ms Catherine McGuinness, the retired Supreme Court judge, would look at all of the work that had been done on the North-South project, in terms of the assessment of the various options and provide an opinion as to whether the work was consistent and comparable to the level of detail of an examination of options which was then being requested for Grid West and Grid Link. In the middle of last year, the expert panel issued a statement indicating that in all material respects the analysis had been done for the North-South project. A comparable analysis of an overhead and underground option was published on 1 July last year. We have looked extensively at alternative options for the North-South interconnector project. We have published them and made them available. They also form part of the planning application file that has been submitted to An Bord Pleanála.

Deputy McEntee asked whether the money saved by the deployment of a regional option for Grid Link, which is a lower cost solution than either an overhead or an underground option, could be diverted to an underground option for the North-South project. We examine each project and have to make a decision based on Government policy and the specific needs involved. To spend hundreds of million of electricity consumers' money on putting the infrastructure underground does not seem to be the appropriate answer. This is also supported by the regulators, North and South, who have been quite clear in their views on the appropriateness or not of incurring the additional cost associated with an underground project. Recently, the Northern Ireland regulator was explicit on the urgency of the project, the need to get it through and the fact that the overhead option was the only realistic one.

The Deputy's final question was on consultation and engagement with people on the North-South project. We have made considerable efforts to try to continually improve how we consult and engage with communities. We recognise that delivering transmission infrastructure which benefits the entire State and all electricity consumers but impacts more directly upon a smaller group that hosts the infrastructure is a difficult prospect. We are always considering ways in which we can improve how we consult and engage with affected communities. We recently appointed agriculture liaison officers, some of whom are in the Gallery, to specifically try to engage with communities located along the route. We understand that these are very real issues for people who are concerned about the impact of the project. We are committed to trying to work through the issues and to address them where it is possible to do so.