Sir, – An article "Row about electricity pylons turns into insults about dogs and cows in Dáil row" (Dáil Report, October 24th) made light of a row over the Eirgrid Link project, Eirgrid's scheme to link Leinster and Munster with a €500 million extension to the national grid. The proposed project would march a network of 45 metre and 60 metre pylons through some of the most beautiful parts of Co Waterford – so residents in the area are not amused.
Waterford residents were shocked by reports in September that a major upgrade to the national grid could involve a route from Cork through the Blackwater Valley and Comeraghs to Co Wexford. We now know why the project caught so many unaware.
Eirgrid's Stage 1 Report contains a long list of newspapers in which the company had advertised as part of its first and second periods of public consultation. Neither the Dungarvan Leader nor the Dungarvan Observer – the local papers of Waterford's largest town – appear on that list. In a letter to members of this committee, Eirgrid confirmed no such advertisement had been placed during the first two periods of public consultation.
Eirgrid has previously stressed the importance public consultation would have on the selection of GridLink’s final route: “During this first stage of public consultation we would urge people to come in and talk to us about the study area. Local knowledge is invaluable and all information received will inform preparations and plans for proposed route corridors . . . Eirgrid will identify, with the help of the public, constraints within the proposed study area . . . Constraints can be anything from natural features in the landscape to cultural or archaeological structures. They are mapped in the study area and taken into account when corridors are identified.”
While advertisements were placed in numerous papers outside the region – some as far afield as Limerick – the failure to advertise locally puts Waterford residents at a disadvantage. This is especially so because 75 per cent of the routes between Cork and Wexford revealed by Eirgrid last month would pass within three miles of Dungarvan.
The project is in its third public consultation phase – which ends on November 26th. In its letter, Eirgrid claimed it did not rely on advertising to spread the word about this project; but why then did it advertise in 30 other papers? How is it that it received more than 800 submissions from individuals living in areas covered by advertising, and few from the people of Waterford where no such advertising took place?
Only now, when the shortlist of routes has been made, has this project been properly advertised locally. This makes a mockery of Eirgrid’s commitment to public accountability.
An ex-post facto consultation is no real kind of consultation at all. We call on Eirgrid and the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources Pat Rabbitte TD to immediately halt this flawed consultation process. We request that Eirgrid investigate these failures, identify how the process erred, and publicise its findings. The Eirgrid Link project team, meanwhile, must start again at square one. Eirgird's plan to despoil Waterford is no laughing matter. – Yours, etc,
KIERAN HARTLEY,
PRO Comeraghs Against
Pylons,
Kilmacthomas Business
Park,
Kilmacthomas,
Co Waterford.