Dr. Patrick Bresnihan:

I am not sure what the question was for me, but I can respond on the more general point that was made. It is important that we do not fall into the trap one can trace in climate negotiations going back to the early 1990s. That is the idea you can put off action now in the belief that in the future there will be technologies or economic or social transformations that will clean up the mess. At the heart of the idea around data centres is that at some point in the near-, medium- or long-term future, Ireland will have a large renewable energy capacity which will fulfil the energy needs of the data centre industry. That is dangerous and unrealistic. The target for offshore wind is 5 GW by 2030, but Wind Energy Ireland recently produced a report in which and then held a conference at which it indicated that it is not at all confident that this will be possible. Without that large-scale wind energy, we will not have large-scale green hydrogen.

As to where action can be taken, it is important to think about where there is expanding demand. Data centres with new and constantly increasing applications make a huge drawdown on our energy system.

It is within the committee's power to say we are not going to increase that drawdown and we will not give any more planning permissions. It is much simpler. Maybe at some point in the future, similar to what the Singapore Government has said, when we have that capacity and those technologies, we can then rethink our approach to data centres. That is my response to that issue.