Máire Devine (Dublin South Central, Sinn Fein)
Link to this: Individually | In context

Energy is a big factor in a lot of poverty. The regulator reckons that more than half a million people are in debt and cannot pay their bills. The biggest users of energy in this country are the data centres. Their usage is rising and rising and with that comes extra cost to the domestic consumer and their electricity bill. The regulator reckons that ordinary people's bills will increase by €500 per annum, whereas the bills of data centres are expected to decrease by 14%.

Over the next 20 years, a staggering 89% demand from the grid will be for data centres given AI, ChatGPT and all that stuff that is coming on board. Given that we are the second richest country in Europe, will the Minister restore the energy credits in this budget? Will he hold the data companies to account to pay their fair share and will he prioritise energy security?

I am quite alarmed at the number of young people who are saying that they are depressed. Sixty percent of them are considering leaving and 33% have actually planned to leave. We are educating them and we are going back to the old age when we educated our kids to leave the country. What can the Minister do for our young people to prevent them leaving, to keep them here in the skills that we have taught them and trained them for and to allow them to no longer be in perpetual adolescence in their childhood bedrooms? That is why most of them are escaping, because they do not see a future.