Timmy Dooley (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank both groups for their presentations. We are here to discuss data centres and their impact on the grid and electricity generation in general. To reflect a little bit on what Ms Donnelly said about wind energy and how that debate has been lost in conversations in communities, I am concerned that a little bit of that is creeping into the debate on data centres. There is an effort by some to portray data centres as the bad child, something that is destroying our capacity to meet our need for electricity, and there is a failure to recognise what would seem obvious to most, which is that data centres are what filing cabinets were in the 1960s and what advanced factories were in the 1970s and 1980s. They are an integral part of the next phase of our economy. If we get into a conversation about pausing their development to wait for ourselves to catch up on the other end, that is a negative that will very shortly come back to haunt us from an economic point of view. I have always felt that, rather than targeting the data centres, we should aggressively go about ensuring we reach a point at which we have both grid capacity and capacity for generation, as Ms MacEvilly will recall me saying before. That is where our focus must be.

I recognise that the earlier Government policy paper was probably necessary. It is fair enough to look at the islanded data centres. However, we have to recognise that there are other data centres out there. I am conscious that islanded data centres are problematic. Cloud Infrastructure Ireland is a group representing Amazon, Google, Microsoft and others, and it is headed by up a former Member of these Houses, Michael McCarthy. These companies are really big players in terms of our future. We have to make a differentiation, as the CRU did when speaking about the islanded data centres. It has to be clear that there are data centres and operators that are connected to the grid and generating renewable energy. They will bring approximately 1,100 MW to the grid over the coming years. We should not end up with a negative view of data centres. In my humble opinion, we have to emphasise their importance for our economic future.

There can also be a sustainability element to this. Both groups will be familiar with the ESB's proposals to develop an offshore wind entity off the west coast of Ireland and will be aware that there are others looking at such a project. I will mention two things. I would like Ms Donnelly to speak to the first issue, which is the delays. If you talk to people in the ESB and in the private sector who are looking at wave and wind energy, you will hear that while there are ambitious targets for delivery, we are slipping behind. There are designated maritime area plans, DMAPs, to be done and an area may not be in the next phase. Quite frankly, investment is moving to other jurisdictions where returns can be realised more quickly. We talk a lot and we are really good on policy ideas and vision but we are dreadful on delivery. That speaks to the 2030 targets, which Ms Donnelly has already referenced. Any comments on that issue would be helpful.

On the capacity for offshore wind energy, as Ms Donnelly has rightly identified it is difficult not only to get wind turbines in place, but also to install pylons and grid infrastructure. With data centres, demand can be moved almost to the point of harvesting. The centres do not have to go offshore; they can be onshore. There is no need for a big grid to get the energy to Dublin because the data centre can be put closer to the point of delivery in Kilrush, Kilkee or wherever. We have to push back against this narrative, which I believe is tied up in a political ideology that progress and economic activity are bad and that data centres are all about YouTube, music and silly photographs and videos when they are not. They are central repositories of data, which are now in the cloud. It is about banking and finance. Everything is now in the cloud and we have to fight this narrative. I meet people in the street who ask what these data centres are and whether they are bad, not realising that they use them every day to do their business.