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

I do not deny the issue with planning, administration, etc. However, the biggest obstacle we face lies with vested interests, those who profit from the current model, including agribusiness which the Minister before us today is obviously not responsible for. However, he is responsible for the big tech sector and specifically energy usage by data centres. They currently use 18% of our electricity and are on track to use 30%. These new data centres which are coming on board are massive and the eight or nine hyper data centres will use as much electricity between them as the 70 or 80 that we already have. Does the Minister accept that if we continue on that trajectory of more and more data centres using more and more electricity and fossil fuels directly, with gas, it makes it implausible for us to electrify, meaning that we will need to electrify other parts of the economy and to shift to renewables? If we take the high-growth scenario of EirGrid, a 500% growth in electricity demand from data centres this decade would require a quadrupling of renewable electricity generation. All of that is then used by the data centres. If we are serious about meeting our electricity targets, which is the Minister's responsibility, the simplest, easiest and most rational thing to do is to decide we have had enough of data centres and focus on shifting to renewables and trying to bring our usage down, where possible.