Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, RISE) | Oireachtas source

What the public could expect from the Green Party is that it takes the side of the environment rather than of major multinational corporations, but that is not what they are getting. Deputy Leddin was arguably more enthusiastic in his cheerleading for more and more data centres in this country than even the Minister of State. He fits very well the role of outrider for a right-wing, anti-environment Government with the language that anything that goes against the interests of the big corporations can just be dismissed as cynical populism.

I will go into some of the arguments that were used. The most incredible argument made by Deputy Leddin is that we need users of power and that we need to expand the usage of power in this country to attract more renewable energy. It is a bizarre, unscientific argument. At the moment, as Deputy Leddin presumably knows, the significant majority of power generated in this State is generated from fossil fuels, not renewable sources.

If we keep adding to our energy usage at the same time as we add renewable energy to our energy sources, we will never get there in terms of being 100% renewable. It is exactly like trying to walk down an escalator that is going up. We need to reduce our energy usage at the same time as transitioning to renewable energy and electrifying the economy as opposed to expanding energy usage, which is what happens no matter where these data centres are located in the country. When we expand energy usage in this country, we make the goal of achieving 100% renewable energy further and further away. We will never arrive at that point if we continue on that road. It does not make sense.

The second key argument made by the Government, this time elucidated by the Minister of State, Deputy Peter Burke, is the idea, which I do not fully understand, that somehow it is inappropriate for the Dáil to change planning law in the public interest. The suggestion is that the planning law is something separate and independent but that is not the case. It is entirely correct and appropriate for the Dáil to legislate in the public interest for the kind of planning that we want to see. It is entirely appropriate for us to say that we are not going to have more fossil fuel infrastructure in this country, that we are not going to sink more money into something that is a climate problem and that all investment in energy must go into energy solutions as opposed to creating more problems that will be with us for decades. That is entirely appropriate and within the rights of this House and is something we should do and the same applies to data centres

The other argument that was made by a number of Deputies is that data centres are necessary, but how necessary is everything that goes on in data centres? The truth is that we do not know. Commercial secrecy and the fact that these are big, private corporations which are organised on the basis of profit and do not explain exactly what happens in data centres means we do not fully know. We do not know how much of what is happening in data centres is stuff that is genuinely useful and improves people's lives and how much of it is advertising, consciously creating new wants for people to consume more energy. How much of it is algorithms trying to target advertising to create new wants for people? How much of it is surveillance capitalism? How much of it is stuff that is the pursuit of profit by a small number of corporations and does not at all add to quality of life or contribute to a good life for people, which is what people want? The evidence suggests quite a lot of it is thus. It is a major problem that what should be a public space, namely social media, is not a public space at all. We are talking here about privately controlled corporations. These should be public utilities in democratic control and then we can have a discussion as a society about how much data and data infrastructure we really need.

The final point I want to make, which I have not had a chance to raise in all of these debates, is about water. Each data centre uses somewhere between 500,000 and 5 million litres of water per day. The Tánaiste, Deputy Varadkar, said recently that Ireland should position itself as the place to invest due to its "abundance" of green energy and treated water. Anybody who was watching politics in 2014, 2015 and 2016, when we were told about the water crisis, which is actually real, will be wondering where this abundance of treated water was when it came to hitting ordinary householders with water charges. The Government can find the water and the energy for the big corporations but not for ordinary people and ordinary people could face blackouts as a result.

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