Professor Barry McMullin:

Yes, I totally support that position and might even go slightly further. As the Senator said, we must look at managing within planetary boundaries. That means managing aggregate societal metabolism but that comes down to the size of the economy. All economic activities, and every transaction, involves some underpinning energy but some are much more energy intensive than others. In the case of data centres, we have chosen to specialise in a form of economic activity that is extremely energy intensive and at a time when the opposite would have made more sense. Again, the committee may want to consider this matter on another occasion. Foreign direct investment comes about by way of a mandate to the State body that is responsible for promoting that. That mandate, arguably, should contain language that expressly states that the criteria that must be assessed in that is the energy intensity of whatever new economic activity is being attracted. Also, IDA Ireland must be mandated to prioritise attracting economic activity and, similarly, Enterprise Ireland in promoting economic activity or enterprise. They must be mandated to look for those economic opportunities - they exist, so I agree with the Senator - that carry with them the least additional energy use or, in some cases, there is economic activity that reduces energy use like heat pump installations and these kinds of things.

So prioritising the management of our economic activity and the portfolio of economic activity in our system from that energy perspective, or the emissions perspective more generally, would be very beneficial.

Yes, that is the situation we are in. It is not going to be easy. The planetary boundaries framework, with which members of this committee will be well familiar, has been generalised into this doughnut perspective where there is an inner boundary of basic, dignified human living so that is the social foundation that everybody needs. The overarching political challenge for the next several decades here in Ireland, and in the developed world generally, is how to bring ourselves back inside the boundaries, and we are currently outside the planetary framework boundaries, while at the same time protecting that social foundation. It is not like there are no ideas for how to do this. There is a huge amount of research, investigation, proposals and experiments in all parts of the world. Again, there was a big meeting held in the European Parliament last week or the week before to consider the growth and post-growth opportunities, ideas and perspectives. I would encourage the committee to consider inviting some experts in those topics to look at the Irish situation specifically and offer some insights into what might be the most opportune interventions in the Irish system.

Yes, the Senator is right that it is a society-wide discussion. That discussion is not happening. There is a role for politicians in that but there are other societal actors. Academics have a role to play. I do what I can but my peers could step forward a bit more. I have many very good peers but the academy generally in Ireland has maybe not been as strong on these issues as it could be. We had the intervention by the President a couple of weeks ago. It was very helpful as the President provoked wider societal conversation but that tailed off very quickly. How to build a societal conversation that is more sustained on that is difficult.