Mr. Stephen Douglas:

Deputy Bruton will be aware that the EU is reviewing its current suite of policy measures under what it calls the Fit for 55 package - making European energy and climate policy fit to meet the 55% reduction target. The emissions trading scheme is one of those measures and that is under consideration at the moment. As the Deputy is aware, the power generation sector and parts of heavy industry are included in the emissions trading scheme. What the EU proposes to do is to possibly expand that to other sectors of the economy such as transport and possibly heating and other parts of heavy industry. Data centres are not included in the ETS at the moment. I understand there was an option under previous flexibilities to include data centres in the ETS and our Government took the decision not to include them. They could be included in the future.