Pause for reflection before we make final decision on pylon network

I WAS listening to Pat Rabbitte on the radio the other day, talking about pylons. He was convincing and passionate on the subject, and one thing he said struck a chord with me.

Talking about the fear that people have, he made the point that no politician in a democracy would ever wilfully set out to place the citizens of that democracy in danger.

I buy that. I don’t doubt for a minute that the Government’s approach to this entire debate about pylons is motivated by concern for the future of the country and the economy. The approach they are taking, which combines what they see as the most efficient distribution of energy with the most environmentally sound methods of production — wind farms and pylons, in short — is designed to give us energy security into the future.

But just as no politician who’s committed to democracy would ever wilfully enact something that is dangerous to people, no politician is always right either. And sometimes the most dangerous place for a politician to be in is when they convince themselves that there is only one right answer to a difficult question.

Our recent history proves that. We had a succession of politicians in Ireland who persuaded themselves that they, and only they, were right about the way to secure everlasting economic growth. Let the markets rule themselves. Turn a blind eye to the need to regulate and lead. Greed, after all, is good.

We know where that got us. And if there is a lesson to be learned it’s surely that there is sometimes more than one right answer to a question. Sometimes, especially if people are afraid, it makes a lot of sense to listen.

I’m not going to pretend to be an expert in this area. It’s one of those subjects that, when you listen to one expert arguing for a point of view, he always seems to make eminent sense. Until you listen to the expert arguing for the opposite point to view, and he seems to make sense too.

It’s because I’m not an expert — just a citizen like you — that I’ve been trying to follow the pylon debate as closely as I can for a while now. I don’t have a vested interest, although the final location of some of them could well affect one of my children and my grandchildren, who live slap bang on one of the proposed routes. In general though, I’m a bit of a sceptic about all the fear that has been generated.

I really worry about campaigns that are based on fear. It’s all too easy to stir up people’s emotions, and it often doesn’t need a lot of fact to do it. Secondly, the arguments in favour of wind energy seem to me to be undeniable. If we’re going to have to depend on imported oil for future generations, we’re asking them to depend on a depleting and unstable resource. We’ve always been a country that is low on natural resources, and if we discover that we have one in abundance — wind — we have an obligation to those future generations to seek to harness it safely and productively.

But if I think about those future generations, starting with the next generation but one — my grand-children — here’s a couple of sentences that stopped me in my tracks.

“Many objectors to the Grid25 pylon project will have cited cancer risks as their major cause of concern. Their worry is appropriate given there is a clear association between living close to power lines and increased risk of cancer. International study after study has shown that children living within 50 metres of the power lines (not just the pylons) have an increased risk of developing acute leukaemia.”

Those sentences are taken from an article by Dick Ahlstrom, the science correspondent of the Irish Times. I’ve been reading him for years, and I think it’s safe to say that he’s no scare-monger. And in the article I’ve quoted from, he does go on to say very clearly that the health risk is determined by proximity. The closer you live to the power line, the more at risk you and your children are.

Ahlstrom quotes Professor Tom Cotter, professor of biochemistry at University College Cork, whose research group has spent 20 years studying leukaemia, including acute leukaemia in children.

Prof Cotter says there is “no known mechanism” to link these fields and leukaemia, but then he adds “just because we have no cause and effect doesn’t mean there is no effect”.

Ahlstrom argues that in order to gauge the effect on the ground a huge study is needed. He refers in the piece to a study done in France that included all 2,779 cases of acute leukaemia that occurred there between 2002-07, plus 30,000 controls.

That study, according to Ahlstrom, showed that children had a 70% increased risk of this rare condition if they lived within 50 metres of high voltage power lines of the kind causing controversy in Ireland. It also showed there was no increased risk for children living 50 metres or more from these lines.

Of course, the health risk is only one of the risks that objectors talk about. There are obvious additional risks in terms of amenities, tourism, and property values. None of these are small considerations. It is in fact absolutely certain that if these massive pylons go ahead, they will have an extraordinary visual impact, and they certainly won’t be any addition to the landscape.

And there is also the question about whether we need this much additional energy. The economist Colm McCarthy (not someone you’d normally associate with protest) concluded a recent article by saying “there should be no further government support for wind generation until a full technical and economic analysis of costs and subsidies is available”.

If I sound like I’m undecided, that’s because I am. There may be an unanswerable, overwhelming case for proceeding with this massive and transformative investment, no matter what the costs. Our fears may be groundless. Or there may be an unanswerable case, on health and social grounds, for thinking again.

But the conviction is growing in me that we have not been told nearly enough. It’s not going to make any difference to this project if the Government were to decide to suspend it for a year, and to use that time to hold a public investigation of all the issues it raises. Such an investigation should happen in public, and be broadcast on television. It could actually take the form of a trial, with (say) a panel of three independent academics questioning experts and preparing a report for the general public.

I know that might be an unusual way to proceed. But this is one of those public policy issues that we have to get right, and be seen to get right. The consequences of this decision will be with us for a long time to come. We have the time to make a decision based on evidence that we can all share. If we have the will, we can do it right for once.