Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party)

The Taoiseach and the Minister for public expenditure, Deputy Chambers, rejected the warnings raised by the Minister, Deputy O'Brien's Secretary General that Ireland would be forced to choose between housing and AI data centres. I believe they and the Minister are far too quick to dismiss concerns by the most senior civil servant in the latter's Department.

There has been positive growth in energy generated by renewables in recent years but we are also seeing this being eaten up by the increased demand of data centres. We need to be honest, in that there are some choices ahead of us. The Government needs to set out how those choices will be balanced. Currently, 21% of all energy produced in this country is consumed by data centres. Our digital economy is well supported and any additional growth cannot be at the expense of the nine housing connections, nor can it be done by increased fossil fuel dependency.

The Minister mentioned the plan earlier. When will that plan be ready and can he commit that it will entail no increased use of electricity generated from gas?

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