Bríd Smith (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I want to make three points, the first of which is on the planning process. I was alerted to this line from Fine Gael, as an opponent of this Bill, through a Friends of the Earth email campaign and I thank Friends of the Earth for doing that. Thousands of emails were sent to Deputies and Senators in support of this Bill from the environmental movement. The Minister of State, Deputy Madigan, replied just as the Minister of State, Deputy Peter Burke, did but the planning process has never been neutral. It has always been weighted heavily in favour of those with wealth and power and has always limited the rights of ordinary people to oppose certain developments. If one takes strategic infrastructure developments, they are set up in an Act to allow the Government rather than ordinary citizens to decide what is important. Furthermore, the Planning and Development Act has been amended multiple times and hundreds of statutory instruments have been added to it to allow developers to build and develop in certain ways, including lowering the size specifications for apartments and allowing for the strategic housing developments that are littered all around our cities. The Dáil is absolutely entitled to prohibit, guide and control certain developments, particularly in emergency situations. We had a financial emergency, so declared by the Government, and we still have a hangover from some of the legislation enacted back in 2010 and 2011. We had a health emergency last year and this year and we passed extraordinary legislation. We now have a climate emergency and that is why this Bill has "emergency" in its title. This is a climate emergency measure and we went to great lengths to explain why it is necessary. I am sure the Minister of State's precious understanding of the neutrality of the planning process would be baffling to the communities surrounded by student accommodation, aparthotels and co-living blocks in this city. I cannot take that from Fine Gael.

What I particularly cannot take is the enthusiasm of the Chairman of the Committee on Environment and Climate Action for data centres and his argument that we would not have windmills in Offaly and the midlands without data centres. The Deputy knows that is nonsense. If we have renewable energy, we can use it to power people's homes and to power transport. The Deputy has said that himself multiple times at committee meetings. He has was there when the evidence on data centres was given by experts. It is not that we are starting from the beginning and saying that there should be absolutely no data centres. We already have 70 of them. We are the data hub of Europe and 25% of all data centres are in this small country. It may be argued that we have a cooler climate but that is not the point. Our electricity system cannot withstand it. I wish to quote Mr. Bill Thompson from EirGrid, who very sensibly said the following:

Ireland’s electricity system was surely not planned to be, nor designed to be, a system which seeks to serve the needs of the global citizen for increased data supported by an ever proportionately smaller non-data centre commercial, industrial and domestic load.

We cannot cope. When I say "we", I mean ordinary people. If we have blackouts this winter, it will not be because of developments such as electrifying cars but because the preponderance of data centres is sucking up much-needed energy. Should that happen, I will back to the committee to urge it to reverse its position on carbon taxes. The Government is loading the responsibility onto ordinary people, especially those who can least afford it.

My last point relates to Cloud Infrastructure Ireland. I asked the Taoiseach if he had been lobbied by that organisation and he denied it. I have asked him again in writing and I will be asking every single party in this Dáil if they have been lobbied by Cloud Infrastructure Ireland, which was set up within a week of me introducing the First Stage of this Bill. It was set up deliberately by IBEC, led by a former Labour Party Deputy, Mr. Michael McCarthy, to lobby this House to stop this Bill from progressing. If Members all kowtow to the global corporate giants of the tech industry in this country once again, shame on them. We need a new Green Party. We need to abolish the existing one and get a decent party that represents people, the environment and our planet before the profit of giant corporations.

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