Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, RISE) | Oireachtas source

According to the EU emissions trading system, data-related emissions from large companies that fall under the scheme have increased 50-fold in the past seven years. This is at a time when the Government's climate Bill is supposed to reduce our emissions by 51% by 2030.

Despite this, it was reported at the weekend that two State agencies, the ESB and Coillte, are proposing to partner with tech companies to build even more new data centres, alongside wind farms, on Coillte land. It is intended to finance the billion euro investment needed by the wind farms which will clearly absorb a large proportion of the extra electricity provided, negating any emissions reduction.

According to a July 2020 EirGrid report, the number and scale of large data centres seeking to connect means Ireland's electricity demand is currently expected to grow by circa 38% between 2017 and 2025, equivalent to the growth of 50 years. As a result, data centres will account for 30% of Ireland's entire electricity use by 2028. This will obviously require a major expansion of electricity generation. It is also questionable whether Coillte should proceed with building large commercial infrastructure like data centres on land that is supposed to be reserved for forests.

Does the Taoiseach agree the focus of Coillte should be on regrowing Irish Amazons and not lining the pockets of Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos? Will he act to halt the unsustainable growth of power hungry data centres?

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