Imelda Munster (Louth, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Both the Minister and his Government are sleepwalking our country into a catastrophe. In the past week we heard from Dr. Patrick Bresnihan of NUI Maynooth who warned that if all the proposed data centres go ahead, they will account for up to 70% of our grid capacity by the end of the decade. In the same week the Tánaiste, Deputy Varadkar, sounded like a spokesperson for big tech when he was quoted in the newspapers announcing plans to update our data centre policy, having been directed to do so by Google, Amazon and Microsoft. If it was not so farcical it would be so damaging to our country.

The Government is throwing our emissions targets out the window and handing our precious water and energy resources over to big tech companies and all under the eyes of the Minister present who has responsibility for climate change. What is the Government's response to this and the climate emergency generally? It is to slap a higher carbon tax on domestic users - normal people - and to turn a blind eye as energy costs skyrocket while we prepare for the possibility of blackouts this winter and water shortages down the line. It looks like it is not only developers who are writing housing policy for this Government. Big tech is writing our climate and energy policy too.

There are two data centres planned for the IDA Business and Technology Park in Drogheda. This is a business park that was supposed to provide 5,000 jobs for Drogheda. These two data centres will provide anywhere between 60 and 100 jobs, but they will use as much water as Kilkenny city and have one and a half times the energy use of Kilkenny. A third data centre is in the planning process for our town.

The Staleen water plant outside Drogheda is already struggling. We have had water shortages. The Minister will remember them. They were covered on the news every night. There are significant problems with water infrastructure in the Drogheda area. Irish Water representatives told me on site at the Staleen water plant several years ago that the capacity is not there. That was long before three data centres were in the planning process. The applications for these centres are not providing solutions for what will happen during periods of low rainfall or periods of hot weather when data centres need more water for cooling, and all of this at a time when water is already scarce.

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