Tony Mulcahy (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister to the House. I am generally in favour of the motion but have serious reservations regarding its practicality. The motion calls on the Government to introduce legislation to "regulate the construction, siting and associated matters connected with high voltage electricity transmission lines in Ireland, in particular to make provisions for the placing of such high voltage electricity transmission lines underground where physically possible". It is the words "where physically possible" that could have serious financial consequences for every household in the country. Who is going to pay for putting these lines underground? It is the consumer who will pay. Do Senators really think the cost of putting these cables underground will not be passed on to the end user? No matter where we build our power stations there will be a requirement for power lines for transmission. Perhaps we should build all new power stations beside the end user, thus reducing the requirement for a lattice of power lines all over the island. The problem is that we have a very scattered population on this island. We have major population centres in Dublin, Belfast, Cork, Galway, Derry and Limerick, with associated large industrial users of energy. The rest of the population is scattered over towns, villages and isolated settlements in rural areas which also need electricity to function and survive. Every one of those towns, villages and settlements get their electricity through a cable. A 400kV high voltage cable can transport three times as much electricity as a 220kV cable. Thus, by moving to bigger cables, we can reduce the number of 220kV and 110kV cables in the network. A total of 2,000 km of cables are to be upgraded and older cables can be removed from many places.

We all know of the need to move away from our near 90% dependence on imported fossil fuels to meet our energy requirements. This will be achieved by developing our renewable energy capabilities. However, even with our slow but steady move towards renewable energy, we will still have to transport any electricity produced to the end user over high voltage cables. This has to be done in a safe and cost effective way. It is estimated to cost up to three times as much to put a high voltage cable underground as opposed to over ground. In addition, the time it takes to find and repair faults on underground cables is far greater than for those which are over ground. In 1998, for example, four insulated 110kV high voltage underground cables feeding central Aukland in New Zealand failed. A total of 20 city blocks lost their power for five weeks, while 60,000 to 70,000 people who worked in the area had to work from home or move to offices in the suburbs. Mobile generators had to be deployed in the city to supply essential services. This is what can happen when underground cables fail. We have seen massive power outages in California and other parts of north America due to a lack of investment in modern electricity grids. If we do not upgrade our national grid we will condemn the country to generations of economic stagnation. That is why Eirgrid is investing €3.2 billion in upgrading and strengthening the system. To date it has spent almost €800 million which is providing much-needed jobs. Eirgrid has a duty of care to carry out this work in a safe manner which it is endeavouring to do. When Eirgrid is planning new routes, it examines how best to carry out the work and examines the feasibility of putting cables underground. The company often changes the direction of planned routes to avoid populated areas. However, because of the scattered nature of our population in rural areas, it is not possible to avoid every house. We demand a modern national electricity grid which can supply power to the whole island and to our nearest neighbours in England, Scotland and Wales, or when necessary, obtain electricity from them but at the same time we are saying put the cables underground and let the customers pay. No one wants high voltage electricity cables close by but we must look at the bigger picture. County Clare has some of the largest high-voltage cables and pylons in the State where the 915 MW coal-fired Moneypoint power station feeds into the national grid. Many people all over the country were very happy when that power station was built. There are two separate 400kV cables that cross County Clare, one running north of Ennis and the other running south of the town. Cables then continue across the country up to the outskirts of the capital. If one was to take a helicopter and follow both routes, one will see that very little, if any, of the cables run underground. Most of the industrial estates in the counties the lines pass over are fed by that power supply. No one wants to wake up some morning to find that a construction crew has arrived in a nearby field to erect a large pylon but equally no-one wants to wake up to find that a large industrial employer down the road has closed down because of the high cost of electricity. Furthermore, we do not want to see a situation where foreign direct investors are scared away from Ireland because of the high cost of electricity here due to the Government's insistence on high voltage cables being laid underground. After potential investors speak to the IDA about setting up in business here, their next port of call is the energy providers. The first question they ask is how much power will cost and the second is whether a secure and constant supply can be guaranteed. If the answer to the latter question is no, the investors move on to our competitors in Europe.

As I have said, I welcome the thrust of the motion but it would be a massive economic challenge if the Government was to insist on all high voltage electricity cables being placed underground where physically possible.

On the matter of health concerns, it is important to bring some balance to the debate. In March 2007 the then Department of Communications, Marine and Natural Resources assembled a panel of independent scientists to review research on electromagnetic fields and radio frequencies in the context of electricity transmission. The panel concluded that no adverse health effects have been established below the limits suggested by international guidelines. This position was restated by the office of the chief scientific advisor in a report into possible health effects from exposure to electromagnetic fields in July 2010. That report states that "it is simply not possible for the level of energies associated with power lines to cause cancer". In 1998 the International Commission on Non-Ionising Radiation Protection, ICNIRP, issued guidelines for exposure to electromagnetic fields from power lines. These guidelines have been in force throughout the EU since 1999 and Eirgrid fully complies with them.