Eirgrid Blows €2.7 Million On Legal Fees While Fighting Communities – McGrath
Independent TD Mattie McGrath has described the scale of fees incurred by Eirgrid for the procurement of legal services since 2011 as obscene. Deputy McGrath was responding to information provided to him via Parliamentary Questions to the Minister for Communications Energy and Natural Resources Alex White:
“For 2014/2015 alone Eirgird managed to spend €747,389.75 on procuring legal services.
That is an astonishing figure that demands immediate justification by both the company itself and the Minister since it comes directly under the aegis of his Department.
What is equally astonishing is that the 2014/15 figures represent an increase of almost three hundred thousand on the previous year given that in 2013/14 there was a spend of €487,269.29 on legal fees.
For 2011/12 they managed to find a way to spend over half a million at €507,212.68.
These are astronomical fees that must have been built up as part of Eirgrid’s determined but ill-fated attempt to thwart the wishes of local communities the length and breadth of the Country.
I intend to call on Eirgrid to release the names of the service providers who managed to generate these massive fees; which become even more stark when contrasted with the three million euro incurred by the whole of the Department of Social Protection for the same period,” Concluded Deputy McGrath.
