Darren O'Rourke (Meath East, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I might ask Dr. Tienhaara about the ECT. In her most recent contribution she said there is no positive benefit for the public from the ECT. If that is the case, I wonder what she would suggest if she was advising the Government or the Minister on it. A number of European colleagues have called on the European Union to withdraw from the treaty. Is that something Dr. Tienhaara would support or is there another way around it, be it reform or something else? I would be interested in her opinion on that.

I have another question for Dr. Bresnihan and Dr. Carton. It appears that there is a significant information deficit on data centres and the call for a moratorium makes sense to me. There are a number of scientific, technological, political and ethical considerations, and it is as if there is an information deficit in respect of almost every one of them. I want to ask about mitigation because that has been argued for from some quarters. What are the witnesses' experiences of the type of mitigation measures that could be used? There are conditions for offsetting and generation; do they work well elsewhere and is there potential in this? Is it possible, as has been said to me before, that these data centres could be net contributors to the grid if their uninterruptible power supply, UPS, or backup storage could be tapped into? Is there international experience of this or is that fanciful?