Sinn Fein is once again calling for the North-South electricity Interconnector project to be undergrounded.

Matt Carthy MEP was speaking following a decision by the High Court to reject a challenge by North East Pylon Pressure Campaign against An Bord Pleanála's to provide planning permission for the erection of the North South Interconnector.

He said: "Communities across Cavan, Monaghan, Meath, Armagh, and Tyrone have fought the plan to overground this project for a decade and they will not give up now.

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"Since this project was first mentioned, the costs of undergrounding the project have fallen dramatically to the point where it is arguably more efficient that constructing massive pylons while the technology that would allow undergrounding has been hugely advanced.

"Next month I will be hosting a delegation from all the counties involved in the anti-pylon campaign, including elected representatives and energy experts, to visit the Aachen-Liege project which runs between Germany and Belgium.

"This project is comparable in many ways to the proposed Eirgrid line but it is underground.

"The government needs to understand how fiercely opposed local landowners and communities are to the project as it currently stands and their resolve to resist it. They are fully supported in this by my party."

(CD/LM)