Christopher O'Sullivan (Cork South West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

If we take this back to our constituents, their three biggest concerns are the fear of energy blackouts this winter, the predicted massive rising costs of utility bills, and sustainability and huge desire to move away from fossil fuels. I will focus my questions around those issues.

My first questions are to EirGrid. There may be an overlap here and I may be directing questions in the wrong way. We can try to figure that out. The first question for EirGrid was in relation to the figure of 28% versus 70% in relation to data centre usage. I think Mr. Foley said that the figure of 70% was "absolutely not accurate", and that the closer estimate is around 28%. Mr. Foley has clarified that, which I welcome. Having said that, even an estimated 28% used by data centres by the year 2030 is still a significant portion of our energy capacity. It still needs to be addressed. My first question is on the assumption that the policy of Government is to continue with some approvals for data centres.

The phrase Mr. Foley used was "bring something to the table". What kind of mitigation measures can data centres bring to the table that are realistic and will actually achieve a reduction in energy use? Is that being factored into the figure of a 28% increase in demand? Can that figure of 28% be reduced even further, perhaps through water harvesting or district heating provided in conjunction with the data centres building their own renewable energy supply? The 28% figure amounts to a large portion of our energy capacity. I would like some further detail on that.

To return to the short term and this winter, Mr. Foley spoke about the Whitegate and Huntstown plants coming back online, which is most welcome. I hope it will allay the fears of many that there will be a blackout this winter. What proportion of overall energy do the Whitegate and Huntstown plants supply? How much capacity are we expecting them to bring back online?

Ms MacEvilly stated that the data centres can be part of the solution. I thought that was an interesting comment. I would like to hear more detail on what she means by that.