It is time for a fundamental review of the role of SONI

Earlier this year we reported a DUP politician said that it was time for the outfit which runs Northern Ireland’s electricity grid to “re-establish its independence” from Dublin control.

Sammy Wilson was speaking after an NI Utility Regulator report was published into the extent to which the Province’s power system is in the hands of EirGrid, the Republic’s state-owned energy firm.

The report said that SONI – which handles the day-to-day management of electrical flows in Northern Ireland – is too heavily-dominated by Dublin-centric management.

Mr Wilson was right to call for radical action. But the generally mute response to that report, and to other evidence in recent years of the unacceptable balance of influence with regard to energy in NI, has been another example of unionist lethargy or confusion on matters of constitutional import.

To state the obvious, the Republic of Ireland is a different state to the United Kingdom. While relations between the two have often been friendly, Ireland has on key matters of energy and security almost proudly at times followed a different path to the UK. While the latter is a key member of Nato, Ireland is proud of its neutrality— but unable to explain exactly how it would defend itself in a global crisis led by a rogue regime.

And while the UK uses nuclear energy, sensibly realising that such power is central to country’s energy needs, Ireland rejects such a crucial source of generation, and adopts a high minded approach to other technologies such as fracking.

Yet, incredibly, a part of the UK is potentially not able to be independent of Ireland’s policies and their consequences.

Serious questions need to be asked as to how we ended up in this situation and what can be done to retrieve it, questions indeed of some of Mr Wilson’s DUP colleagues. In the meantime, after another regulator report the Ulster Unionist MLA Steve Aiken is right to call for a review of the arrangements.

And the incoming prime minister should take an interest in this rarely discussed matter of national energy security.