Tá cúpla ceist agam, ceann amháin faoi chlár an Rialtais agus ceann eile faoin Tuaisceart. The Government committed to appointing an independent international expert commission to review the case for and cost of undergrounding all or part of the Meath-Tyrone 400 kV power link. To date, there has been no such independent review. When will the Government allow this? Considering the widespread opposition to its pylon plans, will it extend such a review to the rest of the State? Until such a process is carried out, will the Government postpone EirGrid's proposed overhead pylon plans?

My second question is on the commitment given in the Chamber just before Christmas to arrange a debate on the North. When I asked the Taoiseach for one, he said, "Yes". He stated it would be after the all-party talks chaired by Dr. Richard Haass and Dr. Meghan O'Sullivan. As we know, those talks have concluded. It would be prudent and pertinent were the Taoiseach to make it clear that the Government wanted to see the full implementation of Dr. Haass and Dr. O'Sullivan's all-party proposals. Saying this unambiguously would be useful. When will the Taoiseach arrange for the full debate on the North that he promised before Christmas?

We discussed this before Christmas. I agreed to that. Obviously, we did not want the debate when the Haass talks were going on. The Tánaiste was there. The Deputy was there himself. That debate will take place in the House before the end of the month. Clearly, this is the first time the parties themselves were involved in running talks after the invitation was extended to Dr. O'Sullivan and Dr. Haass. I was disappointed they were not concluded successfully. In so far as Government is concerned, we will work with the parties in any way we can to assist this matter, but clearly it is a case of first priority for the parties concerned that were not able to bring the discussions to a conclusion. That debate will take place in the House here before the end of the month.

In regard to the matter of pylons, I mentioned this before. Clearly, the challenge for the country is to be able to provide a platform for infrastructure for power for delivery for the next 50 years in the same way as the ESB originally did for provincial and urban Ireland since Ardnacrusha was set up. The Minister extended the consultation period until early January. There are now 30,000 submissions sent in. In fairness to everybody, it is important that these be gone through properly and that they be analysed and that people take into account the concerns and anxieties of people who, for a variety of reasons, made their submissions. I expect that the Minister, Deputy Rabbitte, will do that in the next fortnight or three weeks. I expect he will bring a memo to Government from that. This is an issue that obviously concerns a great deal of people. The challenge is finding the best way to provide an opportunity for infrastructure throughout the entire country. The Minister, Deputy Rabbitte, is dealing with this. There are 30,000 submissions. He owes it to those who took the time to send in submissions to see that they are analysed and considered seriously.