Some 400 people turned out for a public awareness and information meeting in the Cahir House Hotel on Tuesday night to discuss EirGrid’s plan to run a high voltage power line through the county.

EirGrid has identified a number of what they consider to be feasible 1km wide route corridor options for the new 400kv overhead power line planned to link Leinster and Munster, transecting counties Cork, Tipperary, Waterford, Wexford and Kildare. A number of contributors spoke on the deep and lasting impact they believe the major pylon project would have on both the natural and human environment.

“It demonstrated that the people of Tipperary are not prepared to sit back and swallow the commercially-driven misinformation that Eirgrid have propagated over the last number of months,” Independent deputy Mattie McGrath said. “Everyone who spoke contributed in a calm and measured way while at the same time leaving Eirgrid in no doubt that there is seething anger about the devastation that will ensue if this project goes ahead,” he added. 

He said they’d looked very carefully at all the claims that Eirgrid are making in terms of cost benefit analysis and the impact on the scenic environment and each of them was challenged with reasoned counter arguments that Eirgrid must now take on board.

“I have continually stressed the point that any issue of this scale which affects the community must have a corresponding level of community gain, that is simply not the case here and that is why it is being opposed. We are simply not interested in the cost to Eirgrid, this is our county, this is our homeland and we will not have it destroyed for the sake of potential costs that could be easily absorbed over the lifetime of the project,” he said.

Deputy McGrath claims Eirgrid have responded to the meeting by calling the concerns of the residents ‘sensationalist’ and ‘uninformed.’ They have stressed that what is proposed as an alternative by those opposed to the project, to underground the cables, is simply not feasible and would be ‘technically inferior’.

The public meeting is one of many planned in Tipperary, Cork and west Waterford as residents and local communities prepare to challenge EirGrid’s plans.