Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 24 March 2015
932. Deputy Seán Conlan asked the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources if the Tobin report was within EirGrid's knowledge when the independent expert panel requested additional information regarding details of EirGrid's consideration of the suitability of public roads and disused railways lines for an underground cable route option; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [11146/15]
View answerAn Independent Expert Panel was established in January 2014 to oversee the integrity of the process being undertaken by EirGrid to report on comprehensive, route-specific studies of overhead and underground options for both the Grid Link and Grid West projects.
While the North South Transmission Line project is outside of the Panel's Terms of Reference, the Panel agreed to provide an opinion on the compatibility of the methodologies to be employed on the Grid Link and Grid West projects with what had already been done on the North South project up to and including 2 May 2014, being the date that the Panel decided to examine the North-South project.
EirGrid submitted its report to the Panel in relation to the North South Project on 29 May 2014. The Panel subsequently sought additional supplementary information from EirGrid regarding various matters, including information relating to undergrounding options. EirGrid responded to this request for further information in an addendum to the original report on 19 June 2014. EirGrid was aware of the Underground Route Options document that was being prepared by Tobin Consulting Engineers, and which was subsequently published in July 2014.
It should be noted that the Tobin report referred to in the Question relates specifically to the Grid West project and is one of several pieces of analysis undertaken at the request of the Panel. In other words, the Tobin report was undertaken within the methodologies being employed on the Grid West project in accordance with Terms of Reference set by the Panel.
I should also highlight that I am advised that transmission capacity in the region of 1,500 MW is required for the North South Project. This requires a much larger installation than the Grid West scheme. The extent of the installation required for the North South Project means that neither local nor regional roads and road verges would be sufficiently wide to accommodate the works.
