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

I thank the Minister of State for his introductory remarks. I repeat the same thing I have heard said many times this week by quite a number of Teachtaí Dála and Opposition Members, that is, what is happening here with legislation and last-minute changes shoehorned into Committee and Report Stages in the Seanad is deeply disturbing and an attempt by the Government to bypass the Dáil and any scrutiny of contentious and often complex legislation. Moreover, in many cases this week it is legislation that has the potential to have profound effects on the lives and rights of many people for years to come.

In formal terms, I must acknowledge that with this Bill we had a good Second Stage debate and Committee Stage discussions and the Minister of State took on board some Opposition suggestions in some areas, though not in any of the more important sections of the Bill and areas we felt urgently needed attention.

My problem with the Bill from the outset is it has very little to do with the circular economy. Much of it was taken up with changing the law around the use of CCTV, for example. However, I now find that while the select committee spent hours looking over the provisions of the Bill, such as they were, we now have before us a different animal entirely, with two substantial amendments from the Government to two completely different Acts coming back from the Seanad. There are substantial amendments here to the Environmental Protection Agency Act and the Electricity Regulation Act. The Minister of State may well say these are vitally important, necessary and good amendments. It is hard for us to know that, considering we have had absolutely no time to consider or examine them or to question him on them. Now we have 30 minutes to discuss them. I do not want to gobble up all the time from other Deputies but for a Government that loves to lecture the Opposition on shoddy legislation and unintended consequences of poorly drafted Bills, it has taken some liberties this week with the entire legislative process.

On the changes to the Environmental Protection Agency, EPA, and the issuing of licences, yet again a substantial change to existing law is proposed because of the urgency and the need to speed through the emergency purchase of electricity generation to head off power cuts in the period 2023 to 2034. I say again this entire crisis and the panic is, despite repeated denials from the Minister of State's party and Government Ministers, rooted in the insane policy of this and other Governments on the proliferation of data centres. I am certain we will be proved right on this in the end. The Government can deny it as much as it wishes but there are clear warnings from the Commission for the Regulation of Utilities, CRU, that it is data centre proliferation that is driving up the unforeseen demand for electricity. It is not the electrification of transport or other areas and none of this is a natural by-product, but instead the policy of the Government is responsible for this. While decrying attempts to ban or place a moratorium on data centres, Ministers are now saying we effectively have a moratorium through the CRU's instructions to EirGrid. We have a delay for new applications but we know up to eight massive centres have approval and will be connected in the coming years. Therein lies the panic and the sight of Green Party Ministers justifying the purchase of what will be gas-fired emergency generators. When these arrive, the very fact of their existence and the need for them will be further used to justify support for, and the building of, liquefied natural gas, LNG, terminals here. All of these, needless to say, will have an impact on our emissions targets and on any hopes of cutting CO2 in the coming years to the level required by the Climate Action Act or indeed the Paris Agreement.

I frankly do not know if the changes to the EPA process of issuing these licences is a simple thing or a good thing. I do not know if it is a box-ticking exercise with no unintended consequences down the road. What I know is we are being bounced into this because of a panic caused by a policy to allow data centre expansion and that will, I have no doubt, come back to haunt us.

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