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

It is really hard to think of anything that is as necessary to life as water. Next to food and heat, it is truly essential. When the previous Government attempted to bring in water charges, we were constantly told by various business interests that water would be the new oil in the coming years as the environment globally became threatened by the climate crisis and other crises. When Fianna Fáil, the Labour Party and Fine Gael tried to ram through water charges, they were quick to tell us how precious a resource water is. That was their main justification in pushing water charges on ordinary people.

While the name of this Bill might seem abstract, it could hardly deal with anything more fundamental and basic to life. Like a lot of Bills that come before us, the rationale is good. The need for some regulation of water taken from our rivers and lakes is self-evident and we know the national picture in terms of water quality is grim, that EPA reports on our rivers and lakes are regular desperate warnings about the state of our waters and the biodiversity they support, and that nitrogen is choking our coast and rivers. Any Bill that seeks to regulate and protect our water systems is welcome.

However, I am again struck by a paradox when it comes to how the State regulates any and every sphere. We are told this Bill will give effect to several EU directives. Essentially we have to legislate. As we often do, we are choosing with this Bill the path of least resistance - minimal regulation and the bare essentials required to get us over the Brussels line. When you look at this Bill and read over the very useful Seanad debates on it, a few questions jump out and it would be good if the Minister of State could clarify matters. As was highlighted in the Seanad debate, the threshold for registration is 25 cu. m while the threshold for licensing is 2,000 cu. m.

I am at a loss to understand why anything below such large volumes of water is exempt from regulation. It is at odds with the regulations in the EU and the UK and even within the North of this country. The threshold has been estimated to be the same as the amount of water required to supply 42 households. The Seanad debate heard that of the 21 water-bottling plants in the country, none would pass that threshold. How does that make any sense?

I know that the Minister of State has been asked this question multiple times, but has the Government resolved the conflict between this Bill and the advice of the OPLA in relation to the thresholds on the volume of water can be taken before there is a need to hold a licence or even to be registered to do so? The OPLA has suggested that it is inconsistent with the EU directive, and that the EPA would find it impossible to assess whether there is any determination of the status of water bodies if the threshold is below 25 cu. m. Why are we enforcing different standards between existing licence holders or extractors and new licence holders? Why does the legislation contain such large categories of exemptions? We know that the likes of Diageo and Glanbia take significant amounts of water from our water bodies, but I am unclear on whether this legislation essentially gives them a free pass again. That needs to be clarified. If it does, the Minister of State might explain the logic behind regulating to protect our water bodies but ignoring vast sections of industry that are placing a demand on them.

I want to talk about data centres. Will this Bill regulate the use of our water by data centres? We know they require massive amounts of water as well as energy. While we wait to see if the lights will go out this winter because of our insane policy of supporting the unbridled proliferation of data centre building, the other side of that coin is the significant use of water at those centres. Despite the greenwashing associated with them, they are a massive draw on our water supplies and our water bodies, yet we seem to be largely ignorant about how much and what water is being used. According to figures gathered by The Business Post, the average data centre uses about 500,000 l of water per day at the lower estimate. It is reported that this figure has the potential to rise to 5 million l per day. The Facebook data centre in County Meath used 395 million l of water in 2019, and that site is currently being significantly expanded. One data centre in Dublin filed planning applications that suggested it could use up to 4.5 million l of water a day. Of Amazon's large network of data centres in Dublin, permission sought for a centre in Dublin 17 stated that it could use 296,000 l of water a day, a facility on the Belgard Road could use approximately 320,000 l of water a day, and one in Blanchardstown could use 330,000 l a day, according to The Business Post.

When I asked Irish Water about data centre water use, its replies suggested that it does not know what the level of usage is, and that it does not think it is that important to monitor the volume and quantity of water used. Officially, it reported to me, when asked, that while the overall percentage consumption of water may be low, at 0.13%, it is 810 million l for 24 centres, or an average of 33.75 million l per centre each day. That may baffle people, but there are very obvious problems with the answer. The figures supplied relate to water use for 24 data centres, but we know that there are more than 70 data centres in this State. Irish Water has given no convincing explanation with regard to the other 50 or so data centres. Worse, it does not seem to have an issue with the proliferation of data centres, or even a guess at what might happen when the next dozen or so hyperscale data centres are built and come on stream. That is extraordinary, and stands in stark conflict with the attitude to domestic and household use by ordinary people. What is even more alarming is the full answer from Irish Water, which states:

Data Centres are one type of non-domestic customer and we don’t analyse them uniquely in planning for future demand as they would represent a very small percentage of current and future non-domestic use. Data Centres mainly use water only for staff facilities and cleaning; some data centres do use water for cooling purposes, but based on the Irish Climate, that would be for a short number of days per year.

Perhaps someone should tell Irish Water about climate change and the impact of global warming on this country. It seems the State bodies responsible for this and those responsible for regulation have little interest in knowing how much and where our water is used by industry. Again, we are forced to regulate. We still seem keen to go ahead with light-touch or no-touch regulation.I am afraid this Bill is another example of such regulation. I would appreciate the Minister of State attempting to answer the questions that have been posed.

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