Case made for overhead power lines was misleading

YOU refer (July 10) to a Government report that favours overhead lines against underground cables. The press release is misleading because it fails to mention that the report is based on 400kV transmission, the highest voltage used in Ireland, representing probably only about 2% of the network route length.

Why the Government did not commission the study to cover all network voltages beats me.

The claim that outages for cables are “at least 10 times greater” appears to be an inspired guess and would certainly not apply to lower voltages. In fact, security of supply and safety are the main reasons for preferring underground cables.