Ossian Smyth (Dún Laoghaire, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

We had a data centre policy in 2018 which did not refer to security of supply, to the climate challenge or to emissions. The new data centre policy, as issued in 2022, does refer to such matters. It is important that any new data centres that are built are contributing to security of supply and helping us to meet our climate targets. That is not impossible to do. In order to build a data centre, one needs planning permission and a grid connection, so one has two hurdles to meet. Getting planning permission for a data centre does not mean one can build it. There are conditions attached to planning permissions. Sometimes those conditions are based on the data centre policy, as issued in 2022, which requires, for example, that all new data centres are provided and are matched with additional renewable energy generation capacity which was not going to be available on the grid before that data centre project was proposed. These data centres have to provide their own 100% renewable energy and have to provide backup in the event of a security of supply problem. That backup can be drawn on in times of need. In that way, our new data centre policy allows for improved security of supply while also providing financial security to the 200,000 people in Ireland in sectors which depend directly upon data centres.

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