EirGrid estimate it will cost the national electricity operator over €56 m in compensation, land acquisition and community funding to win over local residents opposed to the north-south interconnector. The project is a joint plan by EirGrid here and electricity supplier Soni in the north to add a new 400 kilo Volt overhead electricity power line through parts of Cavan and Monaghan to connect with a similar model in County Tyrone.
Many local landowners, farmers and people who live in the path of the proposed power line are strenuously opposed to the project preferring the cable to be laid underground instead. Following a request for information from Northern Sound, EirGrid has confirmed there will be a €40 m compensation pot available to those affected by the proposed interconnector.
A further €4.7m is what EirGrid expect to pay for dwellings situated within 200m of the cable. The company will also open a €12m community benefit fund, which Eirgrid points out is worth €120,000 per kilometre of proposed overhead line.
Recently re-elected Councillor Clifford Kelly has been part of the campaign group opposed to the overhead cable and reacted by saying: "This is a sort of bribery that they're going on with at the present minute. I think they're spending more time and energy and more of your taxes and mine and everybody else's out there in wasting money on a project that'snot going to get off the ground unless they put it underground."
