Darren O'Rourke (Meath East, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputy Whitmore and the Social Democrats for bringing forward this timely and necessary motion. What we have unfolding before us, particularly in recent months, is a picture of abject failure on behalf of successive Governments to prepare and manage energy and electricity policy, and supply and demand, adequately. Amber alerts are now a common feature, electricity outages are increasingly common and avoiding blackouts cannot be guaranteed. At the same time, this Government will bend over backwards to facilitate the entry of energy-sapping data centres into the market. As we now have about 70 of them, we think it is a good idea to get the Commission for Regulation of Utilities, CRU, to have a look at their impact – now, not before we started granting permissions.

It is not as if the Minister has not been warned. My party has for years warned about this high-wire act. In our Powering Ireland 2030 document, published in 2018, we pointed to the need to manage demand, to curtail the expansion of data centres and to take control. These warnings, and the warnings from EirGrid and the CRU, appear to be falling on deaf ears in Government Buildings, so I think it is right that the Dáil now calls for an emergency brake on the future development of data centres.

We appreciate the need for data centres. They provide a vital service that keeps many of the digital aspects of our lives running but it is clear the uncontrolled and ill-conceived Government policy, which has encouraged the rampant expansion of data centres here, is now threatening the electricity supply to Irish households and businesses, which is simply unacceptable.

The last Fine Gael Government set a target of making Ireland the data centre capital of the world, with absolutely no thought about the impact this would have on our carbon emissions or on electricity supply. The current Government has not changed approach. On the one hand, it rolls out the red carpet for data centres while, on the other, it postpones renewable electricity support scheme, RESS auctions, it dithers with the roll-out of offshore wind - just listen to Wind Energy Ireland - and it dithers with microgeneration, which is always just around the corner but still not here.

EirGrid and the CRU have warned that rolling blackouts are possible if action is not taken on the unprecedented growth of electricity demand from data centres. The Minister added to these concerns on the national airwaves this morning. Make no mistake about it: this crisis, and it is a crisis, is a direct result of incoherent Government policies pursued by Fine Gael in recent years and continued by Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and the Green Party.

In the last four years, data centre demand has grown by 2,400 GW hours, the equivalent of 560,000 homes. If allowed to continue, current and planned data centres could consume anywhere between 25% and 70% of peak electricity demand by 2030. This simply is not feasible or sustainable. It is reckless and dangerous. Based on the track record of the three Government parties, it risks the lights going out and widespread social unrest, not to mention the irreparable damage it will do to the climate and the climate movement. The growth of data centres is already jeopardising the State’s 2030 target of reducing emissions by 51%, a commitment that is less than three months old. Research carried out by The Business Postin conjunction with the MaREI Institute shows this. There has been a rapid expansion of data centres in recent years but the truth is we do not know at what cost or to what benefit. For example, we do not know how many jobs or what economic benefit they deliver. There are no concrete figures on the energy demand that current and planned data centres will consume, with figures ranging from 25% to 70% of peak demand by 2030. In terms of demand on water, the Oireachtas climate committee yesterday heard evidence that this can be anywhere between 500,000 litres and 5 million litres per day per data centre during a heatwave. That is a lot of houses, not eight houses in Drogheda.

In the meantime, we roll out the red carpet. Data centres benefit from our PSO, among other things. They do not pay their fair share. PSO is levied at peak demand but, of course, data centres have a gigantic but steady demand so they do better, while little old women in my constituency are forced to do their washing in the middle of the night to save a few cent. Then, there are the tax reliefs that this Government knows nothing about. Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and the Green Party: it is almost like hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil. Yesterday, my colleague, Deputy Doherty, highlighted that the Minister for Finance does not know the total value of tax reliefs that have been gifted to companies through capital allowances claimed against their data centre investment. The Minister for Finance does not know. It is literally unbelievable. From listening to the Minister, Deputy Eamon Ryan, today, it sounds like he does not know either. At the root of this motion, in my opinion, is an absolute lack of confidence that this Government has this real energy challenge in hand or that it is in control. I share that concern. I look at the Government amendment, I hear the Minister on the national airwaves, I hear him speak this morning, and I am not inspired. In fact, it is the opposite. Deputy Ryan is the Minister responsible. This is the Government responsible, but it points to EirGrid and the CRU, stating that management of the impact of electricity demand on the grid is more appropriately dealt with through regulatory measures in the electricity sector. That is not good enough. Make no mistake about it: if the lights go out, the Minister and the Government will be the ones held accountable.

The threat now posed to the electricity system will not just have negative consequences for households and businesses; it will also have a massively damaging effect on Ireland’s international reputation. The prospect of the CRU’s final direction to EirGrid and ESB Networks, as the Minister points out in his amendment, is not enough. The truth is that it is an absolute indictment of the Government that we have ever got to this point, in 2021, in Ireland.

The Government would do well to heed the warnings and act without delay.

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