Réada Cronin (Kildare North, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to speak on the Social Democrats' Private Members' motion. The issue of data centres has to be dealt with urgently. Yesterday, as has been said, Dr. Patrick Bresnihan of the geography department in NUI Maynooth, in my home town, was one of the experts who came to talk to us at the Joint Committee on Environment and Climate Action. He made a good impression. It was a serious and sobering exposé of where we are with regard to balancing the energy needs of an increasing number of data centres and the energy needs of those in the community, namely the people we serve.

We are trying to achieve this balance, but thankfully globally there is growing awareness of the existential crisis humans face on this planet. We are long past the point where it is reasonable to say that we should massively increase our energy from renewables and then we would have plenty of capacity for running data centres. To paraphrase the Government mantra, we cannot build renewable energy overnight.

This month alone, we have had two amber alerts and it is not even winter yet. Data centres will become a critical issue and I worry about the impact that will have on social cohesion as we face the climate crisis. People will be hit by carbon taxes and will pay more for fuel and energy, yet face shortages of that same fuel and energy while the Government lavishes finite resources on entities that arguably do little economically for communities beyond the building of them.

Social cohesion and a just transition are critical if we are to survive this looming climate crisis. How does the Minister think people will react if they are facing power outages in their homes and villages while data centres still have the lights on? I do not think it will be pretty. I do not think the Government needs a crystal ball to envisage the feet on the street and images that will make the water protests look like a walk in the park. I support the motion and commend Deputy Whitmore on putting it forward. We need a moratorium on data centres and an emergency break. The Minister has no idea how unsettling it feels to be asking a Green Party Minister to support a green-intentioned motion.

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