Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

That image is so crude that it can be easily spotted, but we have to be ready for the time when that content is absolutely indistinguishable from reality. We must also be upfront about the huge energy use that AI technology necessitates. As a country that already expends a disproportionate percentage of our energy generation on data centres, we need to acknowledge that the growth in AI use has huge potential to pressure the ability to achieve carbon reduction targets in Ireland and internationally. While acknowledging the role that data centres play in the wider IT sector, which is an important employer in Ireland, we have to be honest about the trade-offs in terms of less capacity for housing connections and in eating up new renewable energy capacity rather than allowing that new renewable energy capacity replace existing fossil fuel sources. We have to be honest that there are trade-offs to the new Government's stated policy of liberalising the granting of planning for additional data centres that will entail from that new policy.

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