Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal, Sinn Fein)
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I thank the Minister very much. I genuinely wish I shared his optimism with regard to the bar being raised simply because people are now more aware of the need for separation, hand washing, etc. My fear is because of the time lost. It is in the Minister's statement that he will bring forward workers' rights legislation, some of which will be welcome and some of which will have to be subject to amendment as we have discussed.

I do not necessarily share the Minister's optimism, however, with regard to things not going back to the way they were. My experience from talking to workers' representatives and workers is that there was a rush back to business as usual for an awful lot of people, that is, working in a place where the protocols cannot be observed and where people are all squashed in together. etc. I do not, therefore, share the his optimism; I wish I did. We will leave that where it is.

I have one more question on climate action. It is one of the most important challenges we as a globe are going to face and we here in Ireland are facing it too. A significant section in the overview relates to this. How does this fit in with the aspirations expressed by the Minister and his Department? How does it fit in alongside IDA Ireland's role in marketing Ireland as somewhere to locate data centres?

It was reported that the authority's global head of strategy, public policy and international financial services raised concerns with a senior official in the Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications that data centres were being scapegoated and portrayed as the "culprit for current electricity problems". I do not believe that is the case but I do not think the Minister or anybody else is going to deny that they make a massive contribution to being the "culprit for current electricity problems" and, indeed, the crisis we have in our electricity supply. Last week, the head of IDA Ireland appeared before the committee to defend its role in data centres. Given the electricity consumed by such centres has jumped by 144% in five years, how does this square and fit with the climate action aims of the Department?