'If the planning conditions are not fully met there will be resistance': Interconnector saga drags on for over two decades
North East Pylon Pressure group cut out the words ‘No Pylons’ into a field outside the town of Trim, Co Meath, when the debate first erupted 19 years ago. Picture: Barry Cronin
The first Padraig O’Reilly heard about the new line of pylons to go through the north-east of the State was from an article in the in 2007.
A new electricity line connecting the network in the Republic to that in the North was needed, the piece stated. This would be vital for the future needs of both jurisdictions. There was an urgency to get it up and running.
From the tone of the whole thing, it looked like it was imminent.
O’Reilly was taken aback. His family had been farming in Co Meath all the way back to the 1600s. Nobody had been informed that this was on the way. Pretty soon, he and a few others got together to try and find out what was going on.
“We organised a meeting within a month or so of it coming out,” he says. “We had it in the Knightsbrook Hotel in Trim. You couldn’t get in the door. There was over 4,000 people there, coming from all over the place, Meath, Cavan, Monaghan. That was the start of our group.”
So was born the North East Pylon Pressure Committee (NEPPC).
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Nineteen years later there is still no connector traversing the drumlins and plains of the north-east of the State. Some of the delay is down to planning and legal systems that appear unable to expediently get things moving. More of the delay is attributable to a successful campaign by the NEPPC.
The failure to construct the interconnector is leaving this State more vulnerable to energy shocks but a more immediate issue is the cost of electricity. At a time when various factors that contribute to energy prices are being parsed — such as the cost of data centres — it is also the case that the lack of a proper interconnector across the border is featuring on household electricity bills.
The ongoing saga in the north-east chimes with what happens when most energy projects are earmarked for rural Ireland. Wherever the bulk of responsibility for the chassis lies, it is the common good which loses out, usually at a financial cost.
The North-South interconnector is actually the second such line between the neighbouring jurisdictions. In the 1960s, a line was constructed which had the capacity for 250V. By the 2000s, this had become way too restricted for the requirements of the respective grids.
The 138km line is to run from Turleenan, Co Tyrone, to Woodland in Co Meath. In between the extremities it will run through Armagh, Monaghan, and Cavan and will require over 400 large-scale pylons to support it.
Nobody is seriously disputing the requirement for an interconnector, which is being organised by EirGrid, the body that manages the network.
Paul Deane, from UCC’s School of Engineering, says that it is needed and has been for some time.
“It will reduce electricity bills because at the moment an element of bills is what’s called an imperfection charge which is for managing a grid when power can’t go where it needs to go,” he says.
“Across Ireland this amounts to €600m. It’s difficult to say how much it would reduce with the interconnector in place. Five or six years ago the estimate was €100m but it will definitely have a material impact on reducing bills.”
A spokesperson for EirGrid confirmed that such an order of savings was expected when the connector is completed.
“Independent estimates put project cost savings for consumers on the island to be in the region of €100m per year once energised,” he said.
“The delays to the project have not allowed these benefits to be realised as intended.”
There is no real suggestion that the line or the pylons represent any kind of serious impact on the environment.
Oisin Coughlan, a public policy adviser on the environment, says that the only issue really is “a social one”.
“We need an interconnector and should have had it before now,” he says.
“EirGrid has got better on protecting birds and nature for projects like this, they now employ at least one ecologist. The issue is a social one. People don’t like pylons so the debate becomes about whether or not it should go underground.”
The project, as is so often the case, got off to a bad start. After the first public meeting, contact was made with the locals. A forum was scheduled at which people could come and express to EirGrid their observations and concerns.
It was held in a community hall in Navan but did not turn out to be what the local people had envisaged.
“Instead of having a presentation that we could see and consider, you had to book a slot, only two or three people were let in at any one time, and security was there as if we were criminals,” O’Reilly says.
There was little by way of satisfaction for the concerned locals. Since that meeting the group has invited EirGrid to all its public meetings but there has been no show.
Nineteen years down the line, that initial perceived lack of respect, and some of the follow-on engagement, continues to leave a bitter taste in the local pallet.
This was confirmed by Sinn Féin TD for Meath Darren O’Rourke, who had repeatedly brought up the issue in the Dáil over the years.
“You can’t separate this from the historical context,” he says.
“From the very outset there was a strongly held opinion that they (EirGrid) were not engaging in good faith, not really considering the alternatives at all, like going underground”.
The theme of the big corporation or state body arriving on site with their size tens poised to kick around the locals is a recurring one in energy projects. Local people, whether justifiably or not, perceive that they are being trampled over.
This was the case, for instance, with the Shell to Sea row that blazed for years in Co Mayo over a quarter of a century ago. Equally, in projects like wind energy and greenways, local landowners consistently sense that they are being spoken down to, if spoken to at all.
There is often very solid grounds for such grievance. It may also be the case that entrenched positions from the outset ensure that the smallest perceived slight or error is blown up into huge significance.
This recurring theme in energy projects has, in recent years, seen State and private developers make more of an effort to understand local concerns.
One way or the other, in the case of the North-South interconnector, it is curious that any such grievance is still tightly held nearly two decades on while the main event is remains without resolution.
Once the NEPPC was formed in 2007, it quickly set about raising funds. The response was generous, reflecting how strongly felt was the cause, to the point where independent studies could be commissioned and legal representation retained.
The group has continually pointed out that it is in favour of an interconnector, and would not oppose in a general sense the preferred route. The only catch is that the line should be underground rather than supported in the air by pylons. There has been no shifting from that position over the decades.
The long and winding road that is planning got under way in 2010. An application was lodged that proved to be flawed. EirGrid went back to the drawing board.
Before that restarted, the government, under pressure from its own and opposition TDs, commissioned studies on the underground option.
A fresh planning application was launched in 2015, which led to a public oral hearing that took place over 11 weeks. In December 2016, An Board Pleanála gave the green light, attaching nine specific conditions to the permission.
Just over a year later the Northern Ireland element also received the go-ahead, following multiple objections on that side of the border.
Then everybody donned the requisite gear and made tracks to High Courts on both sides of the border.
Legal challenges, including one that went to the Supreme Court, persisted until 2019 before the law determined that the interconnector should go ahead.
Since then, further delays persisted, but in the last year or so, EirGrid had been advancing to the point of construction, which will be undertaken by the ESB, and making firm offers to landowners for access.
The project has now moved to the point where the process of gaining access is under way and offers of compensation have now been made to landowners.
Local sources suggest that an indeterminate number of landowners are refusing to engage with the compensation process.
Through it all, the position of the NEPPC has remained constant. Its members believe the best solution for the area and the country at large is to put the line underground.
The initial study of this option returned with a view that it would not be feasible, from both an economic and operational standpoint.
The NEPPC commissioned a report that begged to differ.
The government-commissioned study was examined by a review in 2019 that came to the same conclusion. A further review, by a group of experts, also agreed in a report that was completed in 2021 but not published until 2023.
It stated that the only viable option for this project was above ground, and it agreed with EirGrid’s conclusion on “the investment cost differences of the two alternatives”.
In order words, it was just too expensive to consider underground.
The report did note that the underground option “should not be ruled out for future projects”.
Paul Deane from UCC shares the broad thrust of that opinion for a project of this size and scope.
“Putting it underground is a very compelling idea and I understand it,” he says. “Pylons are ugly and that’s OK but they are necessary. Putting it underground is incredibly expensive. There are different estimations but they can vary from four to ten times more expensive.
“The more important thing is that the lines would not have the strength that’s needed to carry that power. It just wouldn’t be possible in this case.”
Deane recognises the problems inherent in the line, suggesting that people have to be met halfway.
“It does have a big visual impact, it can always discommode people, there is no doubt about that. You have to figure out a way to work with communities but at the end of the day, a modern society needs modern infrastructure and this is vital.”
Padraig O’Reilly maintains that studies the NECCP has commissioned show that with new technology, there would be little price differential in going underground.
His group is not satisfied that their preferred option has been properly examined.
“We went abroad and got consultants that were highly recommended, spent €300,000 on a report. They said it was doable underground if we went along by public roads, which shouldn’t be a problem. There would be 100% support for that here, but EirGrid are not interested.”
Local TD Darren O’Rourke agrees with him.
“They (the NEPPC group) have a reasonable argument that despite this going on for 20 years there has never been a truly independent assessment of the two options that has been performed to a recognised international standard,” he says.
“It’s not about saying no for the sake of saying no. Nobody can simply say we don’t want this beside us. It’s a piece of national infrastructure. There is a term that was new to me and that’s procedural justice. That is what the group want and they are still waiting.”
Again, there are echoes here with other energy projects. Local people have their own reports which back up their preferred option, whether that be to go elsewhere, reduce size, or change major aspects to a project. Habitually, they believe that the developer is merely going for the option perceived to be least hassle rather than the optimal solution.
Equally, a case could be made that whatever “procedural justice” is applied — however strong the evidence is in favour of the developer, whatever atonement for past wrongs — those objecting will simply refuse to budge because they just don’t want it to be built in their area.
Right now, the day of reckoning is fast approaching. There have been suggestions that landowners will simply block access and construction.
O’Reilly says there will not be physical resistance from his group if all the condition of planning are met.
“We are not stopping anything,” he says. “We haven’t done so but if the planning conditions are not fully met there will be resistance,” he said.
“That will only be in the ESB take an aggressive approach and say they are not going to comply with the conditions.”
A spokesperson for EirGrid said the projected date to have the interconnector completed is October 2031.
“In the coming months, EirGrid will engage with community and voluntary groups in the project area in Counties Monaghan, Cavan and Meath with a view to establishing community forums in line with EirGrid's standard public engagement approach for major infrastructure projects it delivers.”
In the meantime, and as for the last nearly 20 years, electricity consumers will continue to pay a premium for the failure to have this piece of vital national infrastructure built and functioning.
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