Brian Leddin (Limerick City, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Bill, the Minister of State's opening statement and today's debate. I certainly agree with him that we should seek to be constructive in our debate on this legislation. Many of the points made have been constructive. I have not seen the amendments put forward, but I am interested to see them. If they are constructive and add to the Bill, we should consider accepting them.

I listened to the debate while in my office and I heard many speakers characterise the Bill as being necessary to facilitate data centres on the grid, but this simply is not true. While I hate to say this, it betrays either a technical ignorance or it is playing politics, or it is both. This legislation is required for the State to get off coal and oil. We have a big coal-fired power plant in Moneypoint with an output of about 900 MW, and we have a power plant in Tarbert, across the Shannon Estuary, which burns oil. As demand increases and we seek to electrify our heating and transport sectors, we need this Bill and this capacity.

It was said earlier that the situation we find ourselves in reflects "the abysmal management of electricity infrastructure ... by successive Governments." This is a ridiculous thing to say because the one huge success story of our efforts to transition away from fossil fuels has been that 40% of our electricity now comes from renewables. Electricity generation is an area in which Ireland is a global leader. The comments by some Members to the debate are a real disservice to the thousands of people working in the sector who are the unsung heroes of climate action in this country. The comments are, of course, a dig at this Government as well as at previous Governments that put in place the plans that got us to the 40% renewables rate.

Speakers said it was unfortunate we are in this position. Some Opposition Members are bewildered as to why we need this legislation and have said it is a result of a failure of planning. Do they not realise we are in this position because we are pushing the boundaries of what is possible for variable generation on an asynchronous electricity grid? This is not a failure; it is a consequence of success. Members do not seem to understand the importance of having capacity in the system. This electricity generation plant will be available but it will be used very rarely and only when renewables are not available, so it does not compromise our ability to get to 80% of our electricity being generated from renewables. The Minister of State was very clear on that in his opening statement. This legislation will help us get to the 80%. We cannot have ambitious renewables penetration in the system unless we have this kind of capacity as well. We are in the lamentable situation in which the Opposition will berate the Government for not developing renewables, even though we are global leaders, and then try to impede our ability to go further by seeking to block critical, enabling legislation such as this Bill.

Yes, we need demand side management, but let us move beyond the data centre trope. Sensationalist and selective facts are thrown about as if they are some kind of slam dunk. The reality is electricity generation accounts for between 10% and 15% of our emissions and data centres, by EirGrid's projections, will account for about 27% of that 10% to 15%. Only a few percentage points of Ireland's emissions in 2030 will be attributable to data centres. A moratorium on data centres was mentioned. It should be put on the record of the House that there has been no connection of data centres for about two years in this country. Therefore, there is an effective moratorium in place. We have to go beyond talking about data centres if we are to be true to the phrase "demand side management" and to reduce emissions in that way across the system. However, no one in the Opposition seems to want to talk about demand side management in any meaningful way. We need to talk about how we reduce demand in heating and transport, which is through retrofitting and a modal shift in transport. These are and will be much bigger emitters in 2030, even by our own projections.

There is an opportunity for Ireland to become a net exporter of clean energy to Europe. The 80% target for 2030 is one of the most ambitious targets of any country in the world, but there is actually potential for Ireland to provide power to Europe. Europe is in a very difficult situation where it has relied on Russian fossil fuels, in particular during the past ten to 15 years. Ireland could provide clean energy to Europe. We could go beyond the 80% target - well beyond it, in fact - and that would be very good for our efforts to decarbonise our system as well as for our economy. This legislation is critically important for us to reach and go beyond the 80% target.

I welcome the debate. There have been some constructive comments made but there have been some very ill-informed comments made as well. When this is reported on, I hope the old trope about data centres and this Bill being needed to enable data centres will not be seen as the central point of this debate because this is not true.

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