?Stop passing buck on pylon debate? demands IFA chair

IFA Countryside chairman David Wilkinson has called on local politicians to clarify the Government's position in relation to the proposed pylon plan of the controversial Meath-Cavan-Monaghan 400KV power-line infrastructure.

Mr Wilkinson said that if the development has to go ahead then the preferred route should be immediately announced and the necessary information and other support structures put in place to deal effectively with the concerns of families who are actually going to be negatively affected.

He said that the current situation of uncertainty with three possible routes and mixed messages from elected representatives as to whether it was going under or over ground was totally unacceptable and was creating unnecessary worry for hundreds of families and home-owners.

The countryside is very concerned and families deserve openness and clear answers from their elected representatives and it's time they stopped passing the buck and playing politics with this serious issue, said Mr Wilkinson.

The same concerns on this controversial pylon issue were also expressed recently by Kilmessan farmer Francis Lally who is campaigning against the planned Eirgrid power line across the county.

In the Provincial Farmer supplement of the December '07 issue of the Meath Chronicle, Mr Lally said that not merely farming, but human health, remains under major threat.

Mr Lally, his wife Deirdre and their four children could find their home at Tribley, Kilmessan, within 100 yards of the proposed line if one of the routes is selected.

However, he and his family are grateful to the many local councillors who have already expressed their support for the MPP campaign but he is fully aware that there is a view abroad that EirGrid will “sail through”, as one local politician recently expressed it.

The battle has only been joined and the case is being very fully prepared to challenge any such assumption, says the Kilmessan farmer.

There was “a whole raft of other environmental concerns” that his colleagues and he were busily working on, to substantiate their case to An Bord Pleanála.