Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Tuesday, 21 April 2015
Joint Oireachtas Committee on Transport and Communications
North-South Interconnector: EirGrid
11:30 am
Mr. Fintan Slye:
That is a conversation we are having with IDA Ireland. In recent years and months we have seen a significant increase in the number of and level of interest in data centres around the country, the most high profile of which was the subject of the recent announcement by Apple of an €850 million investment in a data centre in Athenry. Such facilities require huge amounts of power, significantly more than we would have typically seen in the case of industries connected to the transmission system. We are working very closely with IDA Ireland to make sure, as it engages with companies to try to encourage them to come to Ireland, it is doing so with the knowledge of where the infrastructure would best suit them is located.