Anti-pylon campaigners ‘not short of financial support’

Up to 10,000 landowners and householders, who have formed a national alliance to fight EirGrid’s €500m pylon corridor, have said their national campaign is not short of financial backing.

Dozens of anti-pylon groups from Cork, Carlow, Kilkenny, Kildare, Tipperary, Waterford, Wexford, and Wicklow have been meeting weekly since December with a view to forming a national group which can flex its political muscle in this year’s local elections.

Calling itself the Pylon Alternative Alliance, its chairman, Robert Duggan said the group has not yet decided whether it will put forward its own candidates in upcoming elections.

“We intend critically analysing, researching and presenting viable alternatives to EirGrid’s proposal of constructing this corridor of pylons. We will fight to protect our communities and our precious environment and heritage,” said Mr Duggan.

“We have many offers of professional help from within our group and we don’t have any financial worries, if we need more expertise as we have plenty of promises of financial help.

“We believe that our uniting will benefit our campaign to stop the 400kV powerlines going above ground.”

The PAA described itself as organised “loosely along the lines of the GAA” with independent parish and community groups linking into a county committee which has two representatives on the central committee.

However, not all the local groups in the eight counties have joined the alliance, with some preferring to go it alone.

Three possible routes have been highlighted by EirGrid for its controversial pylon project which will run from Knockraha in Co Cork to Great Island in Wexford to Dunstown in County Wexford.

In rural Ireland, these plans, which are aimed at modernising the country’s electricity infrastructure and enabling it to deal with future demand, have been met with enormous resistance due to concerns that property and land will be devalued, that the 150ft pylons will destroy the landscape, and pose health risks to local children.

The dozens of anti-pylon groups in the eight counties have also had their resistance exacerbated by EirGrid’s public consultation process, which campaigners have routinely described as a “sham” or a “box-ticking exercise”, as very many of them did not find out about the project until just weeks before the initial closure of the public consultation process.

According to EirGrid, the Grid Link Project will “provide a platform for economic growth and job creation in the south and east of Ireland and help Ireland to meet its 40% renewable electricity target”.