Michael Colreavy (Sligo-North Leitrim, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

It is at least ten years, and possibly a little longer, since, as a member of Leitrim County Council, I tabled a motion stipulating that a multi-service roadside duct that could be used for anything, including water pipes, gas pipes, electrical wires and broadband lines, be installed during every roadside development. I suggested that such a duct be constructed as part and parcel of road construction, development and improvement projects.

I was told at the time that it would cost too much but consider the funding that would have been available to local authorities had they been in a position to rent out part of all of those ducts to companies. Talk about sustainable funding of local authorities. This was an opportunity identified by Leitrim County Council, passed to the then Government but rejected because it would cost too much. So much for costing too much.

Sinn Féin is not opposed to the Grid Link project: we support it. We recognise that the project will greatly enhance the security of supply and will assist us in reaching our targets for the generation of electricity from renewable resources. However, we share the concerns expressed in the motion before us tonight, concerns which are also shared by many communities with regard to what appears to be a determination on the part of EirGrid to place the transmission cables above ground.

We are also concerned about the promised consultation process and I will be raising this again with the Minister tomorrow during Question Time. Is it really a consultation process if EirGrid, with the seeming support of the Minister, has already decided to place the cables over ground? Such railroading of decisions is, of course, facilitated, and indeed encouraged, by the Planning and Development (Strategic Infrastructure) Act which, ironically, was framed by the party proposing this motion tonight. While important developments should not be overly impeded, there must always be proper consultation with the communities affected. We should all remember Rossport. Such a process also needs to be genuinely open, with the proposers of projects willing to change their plans when required to do so or when common sense indicates that it is the right thing to do. We would argue, therefore, that the aforementioned Act must be amended and updated to ensure that proper and transparent consultation and planning takes place. That would go a long way towards addressing the genuine concerns of communities affected, in this instance by the pylons, and in others, by wind farms and other infrastructural projects. This country needs a landscape and land management strategy and policy, which this Government should develop. We should not always be responding to individual developments, fire-brigade style.

It is the scale of the proposed overhead pylons which is of most concern. We are talking here about 1 km corridors which will have a massive impact on the visual landscape, not to mention on those living in the vicinity, on agricultural land, property values, health and so forth. Apart from research proving the very real dangers to health, such as that conducted by Professor Draper of Oxford, there is also evidence that the cost of placing cables under ground may not be as prohibitive as is sometimes claimed. There are conflicting claims regarding the technical feasibility and the comparative costs of running cables underground. Costs must be considered in the context of the lifetime of the project, which is anything from 35 to 43 years and must not be viewed as a once-off capital sum. That is why Sinn Féin and others have called for a fully independent cost benefit analysis to be conducted into the pros and cons of overhead versus underground cables over the 40 to 50 year life span of the installations. There are also good precedents in other States for placing cables under rather than over ground. We should study what is happening in Denmark, for example, from which we could learn a lot..

It is for all of the above reasons that we are supporting this motion.

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