Nessa Cosgrove (Labour)

Cuirim fáilte roimh an Aire. I echo my fellow Senators' sentiments that we welcome that there is going to be rapid investment in ESB Networks, but it is about how and where this is spent and how it relates to the rest of Government policy. I will talk in particular about my own area and securing the supply in parts of the north west, which is the area that has been most severely affected by outages over the past 12 months. It means ensuring in the medium term that power lines are clear of possible disruption from falling trees. Leitrim is one of the most overforested counties in the State with 20.1% of land area planted with forestry in 2022.

I have brought up many times in the Seanad that the overreliance on shallow rooted giant Sitka spruce as a cash crop has caused social, economic and environmental problems, most immediately evident to the rest of the country through the disruption caused by Storm Darragh at the end of 2024, Storm Amy just last month and, most devastatingly, Storm Éowyn, which caused 768,000 customers to lose power on 24 January. By 11 February - nearly three weeks later - there were still 200 homes without power, mainly in Leitrim, Roscommon and Galway. To line up with Government policy and having some inter- or cross-departmental response to this, a Leitrim Observer article recently reported that the Minister of State, Deputy Healy-Rae, was advocating for the planting of Christmas trees under power lines. He said the rationale behind this was that these would be harvested before they become big enough to pose a threat to the power lines. However, many of the Minister's colleagues on Leitrim County Council pointed out how flawed this plan was. Councillor Paddy O'Rourke, who is a Fianna Fáil councillor, said that 25 years ago, enough Christmas trees had been planted to satisfy demand from a population of 20 million. These trees have now grown to maturity, and if they are under power lines, they pose a threat. A Sinn Féin councillor also raised the same issue of trees having been planted where problematic forestry had been cleared earlier this year. We can spend as much money as we like upgrading the ESB infrastructure, but unless we address the simple measures such as not planting trees underneath power lines, then we are not tackling this or taking it seriously. We in the north west know this more than ever.

The other element I wish to address is the growth in data centres, which my colleague Senator Collins referenced. They are using so much electricity that we are way off meeting our legally binding climate targets of reducing reliance on fossil fuels by 50% by 2030. Data centres currently use one fifth of all our electricity, which on projected use will rise to one third within the next few years. The pace of the growth of data centres is outstripping the work that we are doing towards the building of renewables. Data centres are using all the additional green energy we have generated over the past number of years, leaving nothing for society. We have upgrade projects in the north west - my area - such as the North-South interconnector, the north Connacht project and Flagford-Sligo capacity needs project. These should all be prioritised. These should make our grid stable for healthcare, residential customers and facilitate connections for newly constructed domestic dwellings. They should not be used to prioritise the building of more data centres. It is like robbing Peter to pay Paul.

The growth in data centres means that we are failing to decarbonise. We are generating more demand for fossil fuel-generated electricity. If we allow data centres to generate their own power, which has been talked about, and I have raised this because we in the north west are concerned about the use of that filthy LNG gas, we are going to compound this further. Of course we welcome the investment in the electricity grid, but we have to make sure that it is going to work cross-departmentally, that money can be spent wisely and that it chimes and is in accordance with our stated climate policy and our climate obligations that we are obliged to fulfil.