Micheál Martin (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

First of all, the Deputy is referring to the publication of the Commission on the Regulation of Utilities large energy users connection policy minded-to decision paper. It is a mouthful, but it is an important document. It is not as the Deputy has described it, by the way. I think a lot of people on the industrial side might see a bit of progress in this but it will take a lot of detailed reading. It seems to me that the hard left in this country - the Deputy represents that - decided some time ago that data centres were to be the new enemy of the people, in our economy and in society. I have watched in here as, one after another, Deputies have started to ratchet up language about the threat data centres pose. At first, it did not make any sense to me because the Deputy is as prolific a user of the services provided by data centres as anybody else is - probably more so. The new hostility to data centres is about the manifestation of the Deputy's eternal struggle against the great western capitalist evil. That is what it is. I ask the Deputy a simple question. He is hostile to the economic model, and that is fair enough. He does not agree with the economic model that has grown Ireland over the past 50 years, but we need to have sustainable development of our energy and data network. The CRU itself describes data centres as "a core infrastructure enabler of a technology-rich, innovative economy". We can ban data centres in their entirety but we need to follow up by asking the hard questions of what happens to the economy, workers and industry.

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