Ms Jean Carberry:

I think the Deputy has hit the nail on the head. It is very complex and difficult to explain. There are two relevant points. One is that many other EU member states have heavy industry; Ireland does not. Unlike Germany, we do not have big, heavy manufacturers. Instead, we decided to specialise in software and ICT and data centres are our version of heavy industry. The second point is, which is relevant to what the Deputy has said, when you look at the big emitters in the business sector, by far the largest is the cement sector. Nobody talks about that. If you are actually talking about climate emissions, if we took cement out, that would solve it, certainly on the business side. We are not talking about taking cement out. There are things to do lower the emissions resulting from cement production, but data centres have become the bogeymen and the Deputy is right that we need to put a lot more evidence and information out there so we can have an informed debate.

The data centres are leading on becoming sustainable and reducing their emissions, and they are very motivated to do that. It is the same on the farmer side, and while I cannot speak to that either, we can all move together to achieve our targets. The Deputy spoke about the legislation and how we set the wrong targets. There is something in that but I do not have the expertise to properly answer his question, but this is very complex. I have happened to take on a role recently in climate programmes which is looking at the large emitters, and the €300 million fund that was just announced on Sunday is part of that. We have analysed the 26 biggest emitters and they are food, drink, cement and alumina. They are the sectors we need to look at and give support to to reduce their emissions. Again, that is not part of the conversation now.