Ossian Smyth (Dún Laoghaire, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

Briefly, our electricity emissions fell by 24% last year in Ireland. This is a significant improvement. We are absolutely committed to reducing emissions from gas and by moving towards 80% of our electricity coming from non-fossil fuel sources by 2030. That is an absolute commitment. There is a legal requirement to cut our emissions by 50% by 2030. There is actual progress being made all of the time.

With regard to deciding who gets a gas connection and who does not in the future, that has to be done within a regulatory framework. That is why the gas directive, which has passed nearly all stages in the EU and is awaiting its final stamp of approval from the Council of Ministers, sets a framework at EU level for how we can decide who gets a gas connection and who does not. Within that framework we will then be able to legislate on who we are connecting to the gas grid and who we are not.

Information about data centres that are connected to the gas grid was the subject of a parliamentary question tabled in the Dáil. It received a detailed answer which I will not read out again which went through how many data centres actually have gas connections and how many do not. Up to now, GNI has not been dividing out those that are so-called "islanded" from those that are using gas by having a gas connection as a backup, which is obviously a natural thing to want to do. Data centres and extra large energy users are not excluded from their obligations.The extra large energy users consultation that is being done by the CRU is specifically to work out a regulatory framework around which we can decide how large energy users, including data centres, are connected to both the gas grid and the electricity grid.