Farmers warn ESB law would let firms on to land ‘by back door’

The Irish Creamery Milk Suppliers' Association has claimed that a proposed Bill going through the Oireachtas would see the ESB acting as a "Trojan horse" and would leave farmers powerless to oppose other companies coming on to their lands.

ICMSA president John Comer said the ESB (Electronic Communications Bill) 2014 would allow the ESB to provide access to its electricity infrastructure to other companies without getting permission from the farmer or landowner on whose land the infrastructure is.

Section 3 of the Bill says the ESB may provide to any company “access to any electricity infrastructure of the Board to enable the company to develop electronic communications networks, and . . . services of any nature to facilitate such development”.

Multinational companies
"Is this not effectively giving CPO [compulsory purchase order] powers to private companies – multinational, in many instances – by a back door provided by the ESB?" Mr Comer said.

“This will strike most people – certainly most farmers – as a very dubious notion whereby the ESB becomes a type of Trojan horse that could contain companies, or energy communications infrastructure, that the farmers or landowners might very well have rejected out of hand if they had approached the farmer or landowner in their own right.”