merrion street

Energy Minister Pat Rabbitte today announced that he is establishing an expert panel chaired by retired Supreme Court Justice Catherine McGuinness to oversee the preparation of reports on the best underground route options to compare with the Grid Link and Grid West high voltage power lines currently being designed.

Minister Rabbitte is to ask the expert panel to decide terms of reference for comprehensive, route-specific studies of fully undergrounded options for both Grid Link and Grid West. The panel will be required to ensure that the studies are complete, objective, and comparable to similar studies of overhead options for the two projects. Both the overhead and underground options will be published side-by-side, in objective and comparable terms, before proceeding to the next stage of public consultation.

The Minister said:

Developing the electricity grid for our future economic prosperity is important but we cannot ignore the demands highlighted by community groups during the public consultation. Many respondents to the consultation process, while acknowledging the need for an electricity grid fit for purpose, are dissatisfied that there has not been a complete analysis of undergrounding as compared to overhead power lines. I agree that such a comparable analysis should be carried out at the direction of the independent expert panel.