Denis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent) | Oireachtas source

Data centre security and its impact on patients has rightly dominated the headlines this week. I want to focus on the related issue of data storage. We have taken a strategic decision to ensure that Ireland has become one of the key global centres for data storage. This has the potential to create and maintain long-term high-value jobs in the Irish economy. These jobs can be located in the most isolated house in Ireland. I fully support this strategy.

However, these data centres have significant demands for electricity and by 2030, 70% of this will come from renewable sources at a cost estimate of more than €9 billion, based on an Irish Academy of Engineering analysis. If this additional cost of data centres continues to be applied to all electricity customers and if we use the public service obligation distribution model across all customers, Irish families would pay an extra €123 per year just for the electricity going directly into data centres.

There is no doubt that electricity will increase in cost over the medium term to meet our renewable electricity target of 70% by 2030. In tandem with that we must actively support the retrofitting of every home in Ireland, including the homes of those who are reliant on social welfare, those who are working and those who are renting, to ease this burden.

Research commissioned by the Society of St. Vincent de Paul has shown that 43% of people reported experiencing at least one form of financial strain due to the Covid-19 pandemic. A quarter of them have cut back on food or utilities and 14% are behind in paying bills, such as electricity. While I support strategic data centre development, we cannot have Irish families subsidising the cost of their electricity on top of the additional cost of green electricity being supplied directly to their homes. This view is supported by the Government in a decision taken in June 2018, set out in the Government statement on the role of data centres in Ireland's economic policy to ensure that Irish families are not forced to subsidise the cost of data centre electricity supplies. However, this is yet to be implemented.

As we increase the level of electricity grid investment and renewable electricity to meet the needs of data centres, we must ensure that they pay for the cost of this additional investment.

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