Seán Fleming (Laois, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The Minister was ad-libbing. Okay. It will be on the Dáil record. He acknowledged that the project was mishandled, which led to an understandable breach of trust and much anger. The tender documentation should be made available on etenders.gov.ieor elsewhere such that people can precisely compare what is being constructed with the plans. I ask the Minister to make it publicly available or request that EirGrid does so.

The development is the subject of an ongoing non-compliance complaint against Ireland to the Aarhus Convention Compliance Committee. The case was taken by the Ratheniska, Timahoe, Spink and Surrounding Areas Substation Action, RTS, group. A complaint has also been made to the European Commission for breaches of European Union environmental directives. It is unwise to plough tens of millions of euro of Irish taxpayers' money into a project such as this, which is subject to ongoing non-compliance proceedings and it would be more prudent to wait until the proceedings are concluded. I ask that the Minister ask EirGrid to wait until those matters are fully concluded before anything else is done on the site. We look forward to the meeting with the EirGrid officials and representatives of the local group.

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