Paudie Coffey (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome this amendment. We need to learn from the Apple case in the west of Ireland. The Minister of State did not name the company involved, but I am happy to do so. The delays in that case were such that the proposed communications and data infrastructure did not ultimately go ahead. I believe this was a loss to Ireland, Inc. and to the Irish economy.

I appreciate the concern expressed by Senator Humphreys on the basis that data centres are heavy consumers of energy. In this era of new technologies, we need data centres. If they are not in Ireland, they are going to be somewhere else. I understand they tend to be located here because of the suitability of the cooler Irish climate. Less energy is needed to run data centres in Ireland than in other countries.

At a time when we should be looking at climate change in a global sense, it makes sense to facilitate the installation of data centres in Ireland, where appropriate. Data centres in Ireland use less energy than data centres in locations that are much warmer. We need to learn from the mistakes of the past.

I welcome this amendment, which will help to clarify matters from a planning perspective and will bring certainty. It will allow for the future development of large-scale infrastructure that meets certain criteria. It is not the case that everything and anything will be allowed to go ahead. Proposals for infrastructural development have to meet specific criteria. This amendment brings clarity to the criteria that apply to data centres.