Pat Rabbitte (Dublin South West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

It is not a question of technical capacity only. Undergrounding is possible but it is much more expensive. Deputy Colreavy's party leader said yesterday that the norm internationally is to put cables underground. The international norm is that 1.5% of transmission cables are underground, including in economies that are far wealthier than ours.

While the issue is cost, there also can be technical questions. In the case mentioned by the Deputy of the North-South interconnector, technical questions exist that have always concerned EirGrid and engineers because unlike southern Munster, the North-South project entails meshing two different systems and even if there never was an issue with money, the engineers have technical concerns as to what technology should be used. However, on Deputy Moynihan's main point as to whether it is possible nowadays to run a DC cable, the answer is "Yes" but there are related questions and a huge difference in cost.

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