Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

There is no division in Government in policy terms on this issue. We all agree that meeting our climate targets has primacy. Every sector and industry is going to have to contribute to that. At the same time, as Deputy O'Rourke said in the previous question, we need economic and social balance. The digital industries we have in this country play a huge part in providing us with the finance to be able to achieve many of the social objectives we have. We all use mobile phones daily and everything goes through data centres.

As I have said in respect of the policy work being done in the CRU and EirGrid, we have the means to manage this, through both the planning and grid connection systems, and to set conditions so that we bring in data centres but they contribute to our electricity security and decarbonisation plans and do not hinder them. That is clear. First and foremost, the policy objective is the decarbonisation plan. These companies understand that. They are international operators who have committed themselves to decarbonisation strategies. When we are saying that, it is not going against what international investors or others would expect in a modern country.

The question is how we balance that huge balancing system. The EirGrid study from March this year, Shaping our Electricity Future, was asking the right questions. Do we bring the usage to where the power is? How do we manage the grid? The grid is central and key in this. The CRU is asking if the data centres can be flexible within a system and if they can have their own backup power we can use to help give us stability. Can we take the waste heat and use it to meet some of our climate targets?

Climate comes first. Digital industries and others have to fit in within decarbonisation plans. We are good at balancing renewable powers in this country. We are probably the leading country in the world in that respect. EirGrid has more expertise than any other transmission system operator, TSO, so we can and will be good at this. The data centres fit into climate, not vice versa.

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