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

No doubt they herald their fears genuinely, but we will have to put it overground or underground, or else we are going back to the cave. People ought to make up their minds on that.

I take this opportunity to underline again the need for early and ongoing engagement and consultation with local communities. This is essential for building public confidence. The consultation process, as well as the planning and consent process, needs to ensure timely, sustainable and acceptable outcomes for all stakeholders.

I believe Grid25 and other essential energy infrastructure will have positive impacts for local communities. Senator Byrne dealt with the question of community gain, which I believe is hugely important as we go forward. My colleague, the Minister of State at the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government, Deputy Jan O'Sullivan, is involved in discussions with me with regard to the issuing of new planning guidelines. We emphasise the appropriateness, for both State companies and other energy project developers, of examining appropriate means of building community gain considerations into their project budgeting and planning. We fully support a community gain approach in the delivery of energy infrastructure.

Before closing, it would be useful to place on the record what the International Energy Agency, in its country review of Ireland in 2012, stated:

Delays in building the necessary [grid connections and transmission] infrastructure are likely to result in wind curtailment, in unnecessarily increased balancing challenges and costs, and also in a potential non-compliance of the national renewable energy targets for the electricity sector. The planning, consenting and local consultation process will need to ensure that it is able to take fast and reliable decisions for all stakeholders. Only through better planning and coordination, including the local planning authorities and local communities, will Ireland ensure that it meet its ambitions and targets. The planning, consenting and local consultation process will need to ensure that it is able to take fast and reliable decisions for all stakeholders. Only through better planning and co-ordination, including with the local planning authorities and local communities, will Ireland ensure that it will meet its ambitions and targets.

No Government can walk away from its responsibility to provide the country with a secure energy supply, nor can any Government inflict unnecessary costs on energy consumers to allay concerns if they are not well founded. I reaffirm that it is Government policy and in the national interest, not least in these still precarious economic circumstances, that infrastructure investment programmes are delivered in the most cost-efficient and timely way possible, as well as on the basis of the best available knowledge and informed engagement on the impacts and costs of different engineering solutions. I am happy that the pre-application process has started and that consultation and engagement on the issues are well under way. It would show very little confidence in the planning system if we thought these issues should be decided on before they had been properly ventilated, let alone considered and decided upon by the appropriate bodies. Of course, the consultation phase produced arguments, but that is what it is designed to do. Next comes the phase when these arguments will be examined and tested.

The proposition that the Minister of the day should drive a coach and four through the planning consultation process under way and seek to pre-empt the outcome thereof is something that this House should reflect on. The Seanad, as part of the Oireachtas, put the planning laws in place after some less than edifying experiences in the past. I greatly doubt that the Members of this Seanad are advocating that the Minister of the day should be empowered to dispense with the law and give directions himself.

As stated, the pre-application process has started and consultation and engagement on the issues are under way. I would, however, be very slow to commit in advance to a course that would inevitably involve imposing hugely significant additional costs on the electricity consumers of Ireland for decades to come. I certainly could not commit the Government to such an imposition, unless and until the argument for doing so was comprehensively established. Let us await the outcome in the context of whatever decision will be made. I urge this House to be equally methodical and painstaking in its deliberations and not to rush to judgment before all the evidence is in.