Sir, – We like to believe that we live in a developed first-world economy, with all the attributes to develop into a climate-friendly high-tech society.
We place trust in State institutions to plan for and develop the infrastructure to deliver on the opportunities for Ireland in the global marketplace. However the current issue with potential electricity generation shortages demonstrates how such aspirations have been let down by the failure to plan for such opportunities.
Two of the public institutions involved in the failure to plan for the required generation infrastructure, namely Eirgrid and the Commission for the Regulation of Utilities, are now calling for the provision of the relevant gas generation infrastructure to support renewable wind energy. Where have these organisations been for the last 10 years?
Failure to plan for maintenance and generation plant downtime, failure to plan for future industrial development, are the legacies of inaction behind the current panic approach and notices of power problems for the next five winters. And will anybody be taken to task over such failure?
– Yours, etc,
MICHAEL DOOLEY,
Castleknock, Dublin 15.