Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

Gabhaim buíochas leis na Social Democrats as ucht an rún seo a chur os comhair na Dála. I thank Deputy Whitmore and her colleagues for bringing forth this motion. As far back as 2019, I tabled a question on this issue having read the Government's statement on the role of data centres in Ireland's enterprise strategy. I welcome the opportunity to talk about it today even though I have only four minutes in which to do so.

I have never been as frightened. Deputy O'Dowd is a lovely man, but taking his speech, the Minister's speech and this policy, I am frightened. I am fearful that they either have no idea what they are talking about or they are completely and utterly in the hands of the developers who are leading the data centres, as confirmed by EirGrid in its report. I say that reluctantly. To accuse the Social Democrats, who I am not here to defend, of stopping the clock is sick in a sense when, in reality, the clock will be stopped by climate change. We declared an emergency when the children of this country stood on the streets in May 2019, which was less than a year after this Government's statement on the role of data centres in enterprise. In case there is any doubt, Government was delighted to set out that the State's ambition was to be the digital economy hotspot in Europe. We will be a hotspot all right. I can tell you that.

The Government is amending the planning processes such that buildings over a certain size will become strategic. There are not enough thumbs on the Government's hands to endorse this strategy. Before that, we had the policy and study of the benefits. Perhaps the Deputy I mentioned earlier got some of his facts from this. Had he looked at both documents and done a word search manually, as I did, he might have noted that climate change is not mentioned, except in regard to the Department. Climate change does not feature, water does not feature, unsustainability does not feature nor does the fact that the data centres are being utterly led by the developers.

I read a good article earlier this year, which I have mislaid, about the feathery - I have difficulty with the word "ethereal" - view of data centres and the cloud as if they are up in the sky when they are very much down on the ground. I do not think people - I do not like the phrase "ordinary people" - know, as I did not know until I read this policy, what these centres are about, notwithstanding what happened with the proposed site in Athenry, County Galway. As outlined by the Social Democrats, we have 70 centres in being and 30 more in the process. What is the magical figure, where do we stop, when do we begin to question and where is the bigger debate on the need for all of this data?

As for accusing us or anybody here of wanting to stop, I want a thriving Galway city, I want foreign direct investment and I also want indigenous industry, but I want an analysis of how we will have that and still meet our climate objectives. We cannot do that with the speech we got today or the contribution from the backbencher because it is utter denial. We have learnt nothing except we are in hock to the big boys and, indeed, the big girls who are here.

I have only 18 seconds left. I hope I get a chance later in the week. There are many facts I would like to go into, particularly that it is being led by the developers and that the CRU, when it appeared before the committee in July, thought it was okay to continue on as is. The CRU would seem to have changed its mind now. I will stick to the time.

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