Barry Heneghan (Dublin Bay North, Independent)

Gabhaim buíochas le Marie Donnelly. Aontaím le gach rud a dúirt sí. I apologise for being late; I was speaking about the same issue. I have a question about private wire legislation. The Minister informed me it will be brought before the Government before the summer recess. When it comes in, it is important it is not used as a greenwashing tactic. I agree that the CRU's recent announcement about data centres will probably mean, especially for Dublin, that data centres will be along the M50 where the fibre interconnectivity is good. It is important that thermal power generation is used as a rare backup and that excess wind power on the grid is used to charge battery banks in the winter when solar generation is low. Data centres need to be part of the solution. If they have, for example, 10 MWh on-site battery storage, that could be used to decentralise our energy system - please God it never happens - should a situation like the one in Spain occur. I would like the council's opinion on that. I agree strongly with Senator Higgins. It is important we bring the CRU before the committee to make sure data centres do not use private wires to greenwash.