Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

The most recent estimates I have from the Department on the cost of the project is that €180 million will be incurred in the South, with the remaining €109 million being incurred in Northern Ireland. The total figure estimated by the International Expert Commission was a cost of €230 million. I do not have the figure for the cost incurred to date but I imagine it is not insignificant given, as I said, that this project has been many years within the planning process and has been reviewed extensively going back at least ten years in my recollection.

I return to the key point. I believe this project will deliver real value for money. My last memory of the cost of not having this facility is that it would be approximately €30 million a year that the Irish customer is currently paying through much higher bills than would otherwise be the case if we had the interconnector, so there are real savings to be achieved. More than that, this is fundamental to whether we have an all-island energy policy. We are at real risk of cutting off the North and at real cost, not just to the South but also to the citizens in Northern Ireland. My real concern is that this would divide our island at a time when I would prefer to see us having a shared island.

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