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

I will sum matters up by saying that any attempt to develop an LNG terminal in this country will be met with the ire of the climate movement that the Minister once represented. I feel he will let the members of that movement down in vast numbers if this development goes ahead. It cannot just be down to an energy review and An Bord Pleanála; it has to be down to our national and global climate commitments and obligations. If we have power outages because of the data centres taking too much power from our national grid, then the policy we have adopted is insane. Again, responsibility in that regard rests on the Minister’s shoulders. He is not representing the youth of this country who came out and marched in the thousands. When you look at what is happening across the globe, for example, in India, Africa and Australia, you can see that people are terrified by the knowledge of what is coming down the track. If sectoral budgets support data centre expansion and if the Minister leaves the renewable energy market to the private sector, we are going to fail. We have to be very clear: no LNG terminal, no private market in renewable energy and an end to the proliferation of data centres.

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