Matt Carthy (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)

I reaffirm everything Deputy O'Rourke said. The statement read by the Minister could have been read by every single Minister for the environment since 2006 when this project was mooted. Since 2006, Minister after Minister has devolved this issue entirely to EirGrid and said it was an operational matter and since 2006, EirGrid has made a mess of this. The Minister said he will not apportion blame. I will apportion blame to the pigheadedness of EirGrid. It is a model exercise in how not to deliver public infrastructure projects because it has failed and refused to engage with communities and the facts as they are developing. I urge the Minister to check what he said in this Dáil about the reports that have been produced because the most substantive of them described undergrounding of the interconnector as a credible option, which is the opposite of what the Minister said here. I encourage the Minister to look at that and revert. The only question I would put to him is whether he will meet the campaigning groups on the ground to get a full sense of the challenges of presenting this project through overhead power lines because it is not going to happen on the current trajectory?

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