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

It emerged in the Business Postthat, in April, the Tánaiste reassured the big tech companies that the Government would continue to support additional data centres being connected to the Irish grid despite the fact that the data centres combined now use more electricity than all of the rural homes in Ireland and are on track to use approximately one third of our electricity by the end of this decade. Is that why the Government has agreed to give €10,000 per month of public money to data centres through the temporary business energy support scheme, TBESS? This means that people who are suffering from energy poverty are going to be paying to subsidise the enormous energy consumption of data centres owned by some of the richest corporations on the planet. Is it not obscene that the data centres, which have driven up electricity prices for ordinary families, are now going to be subsidised by the public by €10,000 per month to continue doing so? Does the Taoiseach not agree that the TBESS needs to be amended so that data centres are not able to get €10,000 per month, paid for by the public?

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