Jennifer Whitmore (Wicklow, Social Democrats)
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What Ms MacEvilly was talking about is very important and very welcome. This winter, many families and individuals who would not normally be in difficulty, such as working families, will be heavily affected by this. I wonder if there is an opportunity to extend the disconnection moratorium beyond the vulnerable. Ms MacEvilly said there were a few months where it applied to everyone. Is it possible to extend that for a longer timeframe? I believe there will be many people who would not normally be in these circumstances who will find themselves in huge difficulty. I ask Ms MacEvilly to consider that as it would be very welcome.

I have listened carefully and it has been a very interesting conversation. Obviously, the issue of data centres has been topical in the last while. I am looking to where we are at the moment. There is a lot of talk of what we can do in regard to demand management, smart metering and so on, which is welcome, but these are all things that will happen in the future. EirGrid's capacity document stated that it forecast capacity deficits in Ireland over the next five winters so the forecast is that we are going to have issues with our security of supply. The result of that is the potential for blackouts, which will hopefully be limited, but there is that potential. There will be higher prices. We are going to have to move to more oil and gas generation of electricity and we are going to have to rent in additional capacity, which is going to cost hundreds of millions of euro. Therefore, there is an impact over the next five winters, given the situation we are in. That demonstrates there has been a failure to manage our energy system. We have hit crisis point at the moment but it has not been managed to date to avoid that.

It would appear the largest increase is from the data centre sector. EirGrid's statement suggested that all areas of the economy pretty much flatlined and it was in the data centre area that the increase was. There has been an acknowledgement that there are things the data centres can do, and the CRU is conducting a review. Does Ms MacEvilly believe the growth of data centres should have been managed and conditioned a lot earlier than now? We are addressing an issue where we have already hit crisis point.

My other question is in regard to the planning process. EirGrid is not a prescribed body for consultation under the Planning Act. Does EirGrid believe it would be valuable to be engaged in the planning process at the start, when data centres put in their applications? The CRU is a prescribed body. Has there been any engagement? Is it a regular occurrence that it would receive applications for review and give input on it? That would be an important part of what it can do. Those are my two main questions.