Electricity Supply in Ireland the History of the Esb
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ELECTRICITY SUPPLY IN IRELAND THE HISTORY OF THE ESB MAURICE MANNING & MOORE McDOWELL The History o f MAURICE MANNING AND MOORE McDOWELL GILL AND MACMILLAN Published in Ireland by Gill and Macmillan Ltd Goldenbridge Dublin 8 with associated companies in Auckland, Dallas, Delhi, Hong Kong, Johannesburg, Lagos, London, Manzini, Melbourne, Nairobi, New York, Singapore, Tokyo, Washington © Maurice Manning and Moore McDowell, 1984 7171 1026 5 Print origination in Ireland by Keywrite Limited Printed by Criterion Press Ltd, Dublin Bound by Library Bindings Ltd, Dublin rights reserved. No part of this publication may be copied, reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, without permission of the publishers. Acknowledgments THE authors would like to acknowledge the help they received from all the many people who made the research for this book possible. May we first of all acknowledge our great debt to the late Dr T. F. Murray, Chairman of the ESB from 1960 to 1975, whose idea this book was and who was a source of great encouragement, especially at the early difficult stages. We would also like to thank all the very many members of the ESB, both current and retired, who went to great trouble to assist us in our research. We are particularly grateful to the Chairman, Professor Charles Dillon, the Chief Executive, Mr P.J. Moriarty, the Secretary, Mr J.F. Williams, and the late J.J. Kelly, Chief Executive, 1970-1981. We would like especially to acknowledge the help of the late Patrick McGilligan, who not only gave generously of his time, but allowed us free access to his papers which are now in the UCD archives. The family of the late Thomas McLaughlin were also most helpful. We would like to thank also the former Taoiseach, Liam Cosgrave, for his policy of opening State archives, and the late George Colley for his valuable help on a number of occasions. In UCD, we received help and encouragement in this work from the President, Dr Tom Murphy, Professor Patrick Lynch, Professor Patrick Masterson and Professor Brian Farrell. Maurice Manning Moore McDowell M ay 1985 Contents Foreword by Dr T.K. Whitaker 1. Background 1 2. Harnessing the Shannon 17 3. T he Shannon Scheme 39 4. Establishing the ESB 54 5. The Early Years—Progress and Crisis 70 6. Developm ents— 1932-45 86 7. T he T u rf Program m e 100 8. R ural Electrification 123 9. Post-war Developm ents— 1945-60 143 10. Fisheries 166 11. Electricity in an Expanding Economy—1960-73 179 12. Nuclear Power 206 13. The Impact of World Recession—1974-78 214 14. Assessment—The ESB 1927-77 228 APPENDICES 1. Extracts from ESB Minutes about Hand-Won Turf Stations 245 2. Extracts from Departmental Minutes about Hand-Won Turf Stations 246 3. Excess Capacity and Fuel Costs 246 4. Pricing Policy 249 5. Rural Electrification—The Subsidy Problem 253 6. Members of the Board of the ESB 262 References 263 Index 278 Foreword WHEN one considers that today hydroelectric stations—Shannon,-Liffey, Lee and Erne combined—supply a mere 3 per cent of our energy requirements, it is hard to believe that one of the main worries of the initiators of the Shannon scheme in the mid-1920s was the long period of years expected to elapse before demand could be raised to the level of supply. Apart from building the transmission and distribution network and managing the generating system, the most pressing responsibility of the Electricity Supply Board was to promote the use of electricity amongst a public of whom many still preferred the soft light of the paraffin lamp and had little use for power. Even into the 1930s in my grandmother’s farmhouse in County Clare, water was being drawn from a spring well across the road, butter was being made in a hand churn and, as the oil lamp was lighted in the evening, the traditional ‘grace for light’ was said: ‘the light of Heaven to our souls’. I remember, too, the general excitement when the new light and power were switched on in Drogheda in 1930 and the personal relief that one no longer had to study against the distracting buzz of the gas mantle. The evident advantages of electricity quickly won the day against conservatism. Demand rose so well that, prolonged drought having reduced the water reserves, power from the Shannon needed to be supplemented as early as 1932 by the re-opening of Dublin Corporation’s old steam station at Pigeon House which had been shut down in 1930. At the same time it is remarkable, as this history relates, that ‘the Board with just two stations—Pigeon House burning inferior fuel and Ardnacrusha dependent on the weather—managed to sustain the country through the entire war and post-war period with only very infrequent interruptions’. The public finances were managed during the same years with equal economy and efficiency! The amount of electricity now produced for sale by the ESB (mainly from oil and gas rather than turf or w ater-pow er) is no less than 170 times the output of 1930, which came wholly from the Shannon scheme. The Board’s capacity to generate electricity has expanded by a much higher multiple and is so far ahead of present needs as to resurrect, much more acutely, the apprehensions of the 1920s. It is not only in Ireland, of course, but everywhere in the developed world, that an abundance of low-cost energy enlarged enormously the productive capacity of the human being and, particularly in the quarter century up to 1973, supported economic growth rates and improvements in individual and social standards that were never pre viously paralleled and, one fears, may never be achieved again. The ESB’s story, so well told by Maurice Manning and Moore McDowell, is, indirectly, the story of the growth of the Irish economy, with rural electrification playing—after an initial period of cautious use for comfort rather than power—a prominent and indispensable role in the development of agriculture and the brightening of rural life. The confidence, vigour and innovative resolution with which the harnessing of the Shannon was tackled stand in sharp contrast to the cautiousness of our first government ELECTRICITY SUPPLY IN IRELAND in relation to financial and industrial policy. One finds oneself explaining a certain timidity in these areas by reference to the disruption of the Civil War, the need to restore law and order and basic infrastructures and, above all, the desire to establish, in face of widespread doubt, the respectability and viability of the new state. Orthodoxy in economic and financial matters seemed preferable to any indulgence in risky enterprises or novel forms of organisation. Protective tariffs for new industries were introduced very sparingly and only after searching inquiry, even though, as yet, only one person was employed in manufacturing industry for every eleven engaged in agriculture. The undertaking of the Shannon scneme is an amazingly bold venture against such a conservative background. It was, indeed, a triumph of well-directed youthful enthusiasm, backed on the one one hand by professional competence and on the other by a revolutionary political zeal not wholly quenched by the responsibilities of office in an orthodox world of free trade and private enterprise. One feels that the new government, for all its care in subjecting Dr McLaughlin’s proposals to critical examination, found a welcome release for their constructive energies in this entirely novel and ambitious development. Both the main initiators were young men—Thomas McLaughlin, a graduate ofUCD in mathematics, physics and electrical engineering, convinced by his pioneering studies that ‘electricity was the key to the economic uplift needed by Ireland’, and Patrick McGilligan, a law graduate ofUCD, Minister for Industry and Commerce at the age of thirty-three, who confounded the doubters in departments, Oireachtas and business with superior information derived from wide-ranging independent inquiries. It is refreshing to see assessments made so expertly and so quickly, and work organised and carried through so effectively, all by disciplined and dynamic young people, motivated only by considerations of the national interest. It is with all the more regret, though with understanding, that one reads of the conflict which later developed between McLaughlin and McGilligan. When it came to deciding what kind of organisation should run the new electricity undertaking, McGilligan showed an uncommon but admirable independence of mind, concerned not with tradition or precedent or political ideology but with the most effective and economic way of getting the job done. The result was the establishment of the Electricity Supply Board as Ireland’s first state enterprise. No softness was displayed towards existing private operators—they would not be supplied wholesale but would simply be taken over, with appropriate compensation. Public authorities received no compensation, on the basis that they were being replaced by a national source of supply. At a time when anything smacking of socialism was abhorrent, the government showed no pusillanimity in setting up a national monopoly in the production and sale of an essential source of energy. As the first of many state bodies, the ESB gave good example—not always followed—in courageously standing by its mandate and resisting the assumption of res ponsibilities not clearly imposed on it by statute. The government abstained from day- to-day interference in management, but intervened strongly on major issues of policy, insisting on the use of turf, for instance, urging comprehensive rural electrification and requiring the installation of surplus capacity as an insurance against failure of supply. All these topics are well surveyed in the history and it is made clear that at least in some cases, for instance the debacle of the small turf stations, right was on the side of the Board rather than the government.