Harkin questions Regulator on Pylon Health Issues

^{The Commission for Energy Regulation (CER) has been accused of exceeding its remit in asserting that undergrounding of high voltage cables should only happen as a last resort.
Independent MEP Marian Harkin, referring to the CER submission on the government´s new energy strategy said, that in opposing the undergrounding of cables purely on the basis of cost, the regulatory body was displaying a worrying ignorance and disregard for the many issues involved.}

^{“The CER does not have the competence to adjudicate on possible adverse health issues, for instance, and therefore makes a pronouncement which is based totally on the cost issue.  It also seeks, together with other sectors of ‘official Ireland’, to persuade the public of the unaffordability of undergrounding cables”, the independent MEP said.}

^{Instead of joining the unquestioning band of ‘experts’, if the CER was doing its job properly in defending consumers, they should be questioning their own role in hiking the PSO element of all consumers electricity bills by over 50%  in the last year, she said.} 

^{“The CER should also, if it is to fulfil its obligations to consumers, be questioning the spending billions on extra capacity building at a time when scarce financial resources are needed to ease the burden on the public caused by the austerity policies of recent years”, Marian Harkin MEP concluded.}