Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 22 September 2021

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation

EU-Canada Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement: Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment

Photo of Paul MurphyPaul Murphy (Dublin South West, RISE) | Oireachtas source

I want to explore further what regulatory chill looks like in reality and what it will mean for people as opposed to it all being highfalutin treaties and the ICS. To take a current issue which is data centres, we may have electricity blackouts this winter. Electricity prices are going through the roof, primarily because of international factors but also because the data centres currently use 11% of all the electricity produced in this country. By the end of the decade, that will be up to 30% and counting. In the event that CETA is ratified and that a Canadian company is seeking to build a data centre in Ireland, and, let us say, Government policy changes in line with People Before Profit's Bill and we say there will be no more data centres as that is unsustainable, is it not the case that such a company could sue the State though the ICS for "indirect expropriation"? Let us say that they bought the land, they are preparing to go and then we say there will be no more planning permissions for data centres, they could take us to the ICS.

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