Luke Flanagan (Roscommon-South Leitrim, Independent) | Oireachtas source

The consultation process began yesterday at the committee meeting when John O'Connor, the incoming chairman of EirGrid, was asked if he would live beside a pylon. He said he would not like to live close to a pylon and asked who would. That started the consultation process because there has not been a consultation process, especially in the area in which I live, where 10,000 leaflets mysteriously did not arrive at the people most affected by the matter under consultation.

It is obvious at this stage that we will have to go back to the drawing board. We must talk to people first. Doing so will establish whether people are agreeable to the pylons being overground. If not, the possibility of going underground must be examined. After that, we decide the terrain of the route. Overground routes require different terrain from underground routes.

The Government does not seem to understand consultation. If the Government were running a matchmaking agency, with the hope of marriage for its clients at the end, it would start off by marrying them without getting them to talk to each other. Then, it would put them into marriage counselling and try to sort out the problems after the contract was signed. That is not the way to proceed. We must have all the knowledge before signing up to the contract. That is the reason for the current mess. Jim Higgins, MEP, is going to solve it in Europe at a petitions committee. There is a political circus around this. All the Government Deputies and some of the rebel Labour Party Senators will solve the problem when the solution is in the Minister's hands. The Minister can solve this by making the decision to go back to the beginning and start consultation where it should begin, at the beginning. He should listen to the incoming chairman who said he would not like to live close to a pylon. He said he would not like his view damaged or that it would be a disamenity. He thinks people should be compensated if affected but he has already confirmed that people will be affected. This must all be thrown into the pile and the Government must go back to the beginning. That is where things usually start.

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