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

We have probably all known for a while now that data centre operators have been developing their own energy capacity in recent years. We are all aware of the danger of the blackouts we were warned would occur over the winter months. These did not happen but the full extent of generation capacity has only recently been learned and revealed. It indicates just how considerable the energy demand of the centres has become. The likes of Microsoft, Amazon and Google, along with other data centres, are organising on-site gas capacity that would, if combined, meet the generation needs of the entire country. It is very much the intention to back up their energy needs with all this gas.

I put this to the Taoiseach in the context of the recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report. That report has given us a last warning to reduce our emissions, end of story. The scale at which our emissions would go up should the data centres start to use the extra capacity is absolutely startling and frightening. It would undo all the targets we have set ourselves. The proliferation of the data centres is such that we really need to ask ourselves what we are doing in this country. It is utter madness. Eight of 16 are hyper-scale and due to come on board in the next couple of years. That is on top of the 40-plus that are already feeding off our national grid. We need to ask the question seriously, investigate the matter, be absolutely honest with ourselves and stop protecting the multinationals.

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