Fergus O'Dowd (Louth, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I strongly oppose the motion. By its nature it wants to stop the clock and stop development in the country. I accept there is clearly an issue with energy supply in the future.

The research the Social Democrats allege they have done has been very poor and needs to be informed far more constructively. For over 30 years, technology successes in Ireland have made our country the destination of choice for leading technology companies. The IT sector accounts for €52 billion, which is 16% of the gross added value in our economy. Over 140,000 people are employed in the business. In data centres specifically, over 20,000 people are employed in different parts of the country. It is not just that but the contribution they make in taxes, exports, capital expenditure and so on. It is quite clear from the IDA document that they are a critical part of the infrastructure in our country and it states specifically that large data centre companies are fully committed to powering their data centres renewably.

If the Social Democrats did further analysis they might find that Amazon announced two renewable energy projects in 2019, in Donegal and Cork, and a third one in 2020. These three projects together will bring renewable energy to the Irish grid which would be the equivalent of powering 180,000 Irish homes. These three Amazon projects mean they will be using 100% renewable energy by 2025.

On the question of water use, there are old cars and new cars, gas-guzzlers and modern cars being produced every day. The same is true of data centres. The Deputies spoke about water use. Here is a figure they should have found out. I found it out because Amazon applied to build a data centre in our town. The Amazon data centre in Drogheda will use the equivalent of eight households per annum water use. There are huge differences between old technology and new technology and there are huge changes coming about. Companies like Amazon that have invested in Drogheda are also attracting other industry. We recently had new jobs for Drogheda. It is a very attractive location for inward investment as a global leader in the circular cloud and sustainable data centre infrastructure is now based in our town. One data centre is attracting new recyclable circular economy industries into our economy. The Deputies should take their heads out of the sand and look at the facts.

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