Emer Higgins (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael)

The Government data centre initiative is led by the Office of the Government Chief Information Officer, OGCIO, a division within my Department. It is an action item in the Government’s public service ICT strategy and aims to deliver and centrally support ICT as a shared service rather than have common technical solutions in each public sector body. The Government data centre project will deliver high-quality, energy efficient data centre facilities which are fit for purpose and are capable of efficiently meeting the Government's technology and energy saving requirements, both now and into the future. It will provide access for State bodies' ICT infrastructure to drive efficiency, standardisation, consolidation and the reduction in duplication as well as cost control. It is also an important element of the Government's strategic framework for fostering technology innovation and excellence across the public services in Ireland. That is something we, as a Government, encourage and recognise continually. In fact, the Taoiseach, the Minister, Deputy Chambers, and I will tonight do that at the 10th Civil Service Excellence and Innovation Awards.

Following a successful procurement exercise by the OPW in 2022, a preferred bidder was chosen and a contract signed for the construction of the Government data centre in late 2022. The data centre construction project, which is co-funded by the EU's National Resilience and Recovery Programme, started in quarter 1 of 2023 and was successfully completed in early May 2025, earlier this month. The project came in on-budget and on-time. The next phase of the Government data centre programme will be the internal fit out and that will include the procurement and installation of racks and internal networking. That will begin in June and is scheduled to be completed by the end of this year. It is expected that the Government data centre will be operational from 2026 onwards and public service bodies will begin transitioning all their ICT infrastructure and services to the data centre from that point.

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