Sir, – I was pleased to note that Aidan O’Sullivan (October 29th) saw the coverage of a good news story for Ireland last week with work on the cable-laying getting under way off the Irish coast for the EirGrid East West Interconnector.
However, may I clarify that Mr O’Sullivan’s impression that recent media coverage of the marine cable laying of the EirGrid Interconnector had not referenced European Union funding is incorrect.
The European funding received coverage in much of the media reporting on this subject last week – and The Irish Times(both Home News and Editorial on October 28th) reported that EirGrid had received a grant of €110 million from the European Union towards the cost of the €600 million interconnector from Ireland to Wales.
This key piece of electricity infrastructure is being built by EirGrid, which is independent, and is not owned by any other company. Regarding the cost of the interconnector, I would like to confirm that the project is on target and likely to come in under its €600 million budget, and not “much more than the original estimate” as was suggested in your Editorial (October 28th). – Yours, etc,