Pat Rabbitte (Dublin South West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

However, I note that cost data can change and cost estimates are always uncertain, which emphasises the need for the project-specific solutions I referred to earlier.

While the case for proceeding urgently with energy infrastructure is critical to the national interest, many are concerned about the impact that new transmission lines and other energy infrastructure can have on the landscape, on the environment and on local communities. It is therefore essential that Grid25 and other energy infrastructure be taken forward on the basis of the best available knowledge and informed engagement about the impacts and costs of different engineering solutions.

I am, of course, conscious that public acceptance of new infrastructure is a major challenge. Social acceptance and understanding of our need for this infrastructure are both critical. I fully expect EirGrid will always undertake and communicate well-informed, objective and authoritative analysis, thoroughgoing impact assessment and pre-planning consultation in arriving at optimal routes, technology choice, design and costings, and that is the expectation of the Government.

In addition to extensive statutory and non-statutory public consultation, EirGrid must adhere to national and international standards on health, environment, biodiversity, landscape and safety as an intrinsic part of the planning process. Compliance, together with appropriate impact mitigation measures, is central to the environmental impact assessments that form the basis of planning applications to An Bord Pleanála. This includes compliance with electromagnetic frequency exposure limits set in the guidelines published by the International Commission on Non-Ionising Radiation Protection and associated EU recommendations, and national and EU legislation on the environment, habitats and biodiversity. Somebody wants me to produce a scientist who says, "No - never - in no circumstances will such a thing happen." One knows well one would be waiting until the cows came home before that happened. It does not happen in the real world. Senator Sean Barrett made the point about the Rush to Woodland connector. The east-west interconnector is an undersea cable; it is a different technology. It would not make any sense for the transmission lines to come up overhead when they come off the seabed. While the conflict Senator Byrne described was going on with regard to the Meath-Tyrone line, I was receiving deputations from Rush about undergrounding.