Jennifer Whitmore (Wicklow, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

I will follow on from the comments on data centres. I read the four options outlined in the presentation. There is an acceptance that this transition will be costly financially, and will also be costly to communities and the environment. It is not a no risk or no impact solution. I thought our first port of call would have been to minimise those costs. I am surprised that there is no mention of demand management in the document. The document referred to four questions. Surely the first question should be how we can manage the demand for electricity, including renewable electricity, because of the costs of generation and transitioning.

Data centres will be a huge cost to us. I accept the point that they are part of how we live at the moment and have a function within our economy. However, if we expect data centres to move to provide their own generation capacity on site, are we not better off putting a cap on the growth we will allow in the sector? Such a cap could force changes. The expectation that we will be able to transition to a low carbon economy while at the same time allowing an incredible increase in demand from a particular industry is a contradiction.

I hope that the first port of call is to ask what level of demand we will accept because there will be a cost to all this, financially and environmentally. Surely we should impose a cap on large users. What is Mr. Foley's opinion on that? Where does demand management come into play in the proposal? Should there be a cap on the amount of energy we allow to be used by data centres?