Jim Higgins (Fine Gael)

I appeal for a debate on an issue touched upon by Senator Brendan Ryan, and it should not be taken as part of the debate on spatial planning. I refer to the dire warning issued yesterday by the managing director of Eirgrid, Ciaran O'Brien, that unless a new power station is built by 2005 there will be serious outages and blackouts and an electricity deficiency of 20%. There are no plans to build a new power station. I ask for an immediate debate on this issue because it will undermine the entire economy and frighten off foreign investment, not to mention the fact that it will spoil people's viewing of "Eastenders" or "Coronation Street".