Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

Four days before the previous general election, the current Minister with responsibility for energy went public about wind energy development and the significant development that was needed before data centres were built. I refer to the following article that appeared on Extra.ie:

Green Party leader Eamon Ryan has said he will push for massive offshore wind power capacity to be developed before any more data centres are built if his party re-enters government after the general election.

Speaking to Extra.ie, Mr Ryan said that the next government needs to be sure that data centres 'don't interfere with meeting climate targets', with the government committed to supplying 70% or around 10,000 megawatts (MW) of energy from renewable sources by 2030.

'Ireland has everything to gain from this type of energy and data centres fit into that but they have to fit into it, we can't build the data centres first and then try and tap into the offshore energy, I think we need to get the offshore energy built and that then deals with a lot of the sustainability concerns that people have'.

Indeed, that addresses the point made by Deputy McNamara regarding where they should they be located. They should be located where we have renewable energy to power them. I believe that is the point the Minister, Deputy Ryan, was making last year. Four days later, after that article published, we had a generation election and the Green Party was very successful in winning 12 seats. I believe there was an expectation this would make a sizeable difference in terms of focusing the Government.

Essentially, this is a central issue in terms of power supply. How can the Government possibly argue for people to go out and buy electric cars and then power them by Moneypoint? It is argument the Green Party was making last year. I do not know who wrote the speech the Minister gave, but to be perfectly honest with the Minister of State, it must be an embarrassment. The noticeable absence of Green Party Deputies in the Dáil this morning says it all.

I will finish on one point because I am going to allow my colleague, Deputy Whitmore, to wrap up. We are not looking for something that has not been done elsewhere. Singapore has recently become the first country to introduce a moratorium on data centres. It is taking what we believe is the very sensible approach of only lifting the moratorium when renewable energy capacity has been increased and data storage technologies, which would reduce the energy burden, have been developed. The Government might also wish to know that Singapore is the fifth largest recipient of foreign direct investment, FDI.

We are seeing at the moment that IDA Ireland, which was an advocate for data centres, is now making the argument that are our problem with energy and secure energy supply is actually an impediment and could cause us reputational damage. We must get to grips with assessing what is needed. We do not do planning in this country but we have to do it with regard to this because what is happening is unsustainable.

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