Paudie Coffey (Waterford, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I, too, welcome the opportunity to contribute to this debate. It is the responsibility of every public representative to advocate and relay on the floor of the Dáil the concerns he or she is hearing from constituents. I have already placed many of these concerns on the public record, at both Dáil and Oireachtas committee level. Many constituents were in contact with me this evening about the motion. It is very obvious that the soldiers of destiny, Fianna Fáil, were very busy this evening spinning a yarn that the motion involved a "Yes" or "No" vote on the suspension of the EirGrid project. This is disingenuous. It is preying on people's fears and playing politics with the genuine concerns of constituents. I do not know what Fianna Fáil is trying to achieve in putting that kind of message out. If one reads the text of the motion, one realises there is no message further from the truth. In 2006 Fianna Fáil introduced the strategic infrastructure legislation and it fully endorsed Grid25 in 2008. The latter is what EirGrid is pursuing today.

We have a responsibility in this Chamber to debate all of the issues surrounding this matter, including energy security, climate change challenges and the justification for and pre-consultation on projects such as the one in question. In saying "justification" I refer to the specific details of the economic demand for the power lines. Is the demand real or not? Is it based on projections from the Celtic tiger era or the realities of the economy today? We need to focus, in particular, on this area to determine whether the investment is justified in the first instance.

We also need to address people’s genuine concerns about the impact of pylons on health, land values, visual amenities and the environment. At today’s transport committee, EirGrid’s chief executive admitted it could have done more work on information and transparency around these issues. I challenged him that its consultation process is just about ticking the boxes and going through the motions. We have heard the same from many other Members across the country. There needs to be an impartial examination of EirGrid’s proposals.

The whole matter will boil down to whether these power lines can go overhead or underground. Is it technically and economically feasible to underground these cables? We need to have full transparency and the facts around this in any debate, as well as a full cost-benefit analysis including the full lifecycle of the overhead option versus the underground. The Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources conceded to me in the Chamber last week that he is open to the merits of this suggestion. I urge him to have that cost benefit analysis undertaken in the interests of achieving public confidence in this project. Unless we have clear and concise information on the Grid Link project rather than these generalities we have received so far, as well as the pros and cons of each option, we will meet much resistance to this project.

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