Ruth Coppinger (Dublin West, Solidarity) | Oireachtas source

That is all very interesting, but if we have such a love-in with data centres we are not going to reach our emissions targets. We are already set to have a 57% shortfall for emission reduction for transport, buildings, waste and agriculture and a shortfall of 12% for renewable energy production. We face €26 billion in fines. How are we to pay that? How is the State to deal with that because of the policy of attracting data centres? The Taoiseach has been quoted as saying we are "demonising data centres" in Ireland with our commentary, but there is a lot to demonise them for. Just one Meta data centre in Clonee uses 2.5 million gallons of water per day. That is the same as Athlone, which is a town of 21,000 people.

11 o’clock

How will we make up that shortfall in water and electricity?

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