Pat Casey (Fianna Fail)

I will enter the debate on data centres. First, I put on the record that I have been working with Echelon Data Centres since 2017 to try to attract them out of a constraint area into the town of Arklow, County Wicklow. We must learn from our history, I will not deny that, but it is about how we can move forward with both data centres and housing. It is not about one or the other. In fairness, there has only been one grid connection given to a data centre in the past four years because of the continuous amendment of the CRU policy in relation to the large-scale energy usage policy, which we are still waiting for.

I will tell a slightly different story than is being portrayed today about Echelon and how it successfully got its grid connection, because no data centre can start without that grid connection. With that, you can proceed. Without it, you cannot. I ask Senators to look at that connection to see what is included in it. First, Echelon can no longer take energy from the grid if it is under constraint. If there is pressure on the grid, Echelon is not allowed take the energy from it. Second, it has to support the grid when the grid is under constraint. Third, all its energy has to be generated on-site in a sustainable manner. It is the first company to partner with an offshore supplier, SSE Renewables, to build the critical infrastructure Senators are talking about to land the energy from the sea onto the land for distribution. It is a model for how we can move forward with data centres and housing.

We have also just received a briefing at the housing committee from EnergyCloud Ireland about wasted energy every night from wind energy that is going absolutely nowhere. This is where data centres play a role. They have demand 24-7. They will use that energy when nobody else is using it. They have battery storage facilities. They are doing it in a sustainable manner and even have a guide path to carbon neutral by 2033. That is the model of data centres we need in Ireland. It is not about housing or data centres. It is about how we can both work together and come together because we need the offshore wind. If offshore wind does not have data centres tomorrow to use its energy it will never be financially viable and will never happen. We have the discussion about one or the other, but we have to be open and honest and look at the wider implications. Yes, Dublin is within the constraint area. That is why Echelon looked at Arklow. It is redeveloping the IFI site in Arklow, which has lain idle since 1,100 employees were left off when the fertiliser factory closed. We are regenerating a brown field site. We need to look at how we do this in the future and learn from the past. However, there is a pathway where both can be delivered together. Equally, in fairness to Echelon, which has yet to turn the sod, it has invested in communities in County Wicklow to the tune of over €3.5 million so far. It has yet to break the ground. It took it four years to get the grid connect, and rightly so. It has to be done in a sustainable manner. It is not about one or the other. It is how we bring both together, so we do not lose golden opportunities that this country has.

We are one of the leaders on data centre engineering. Our expertise in data centres is exported across the world. LMH Engineering in Arklow is fitting out all data centres for Meta across the whole of Europe. That is expertise Ireland has. It is scaling up now and will hopefully have 400 jobs on a site in Arklow based on data centres. Those are engineering jobs. The investment in Arklow from Echelon is approximately €3.5 billion before the occupier of the site comes in to employ. KPMG reports that 700 people will be employed across the two sites when that project is fully completed and operational in between five and ten years’ time.

We do need to have a conversation, but the conversation needs to be balanced. It needs to be balanced about how we can bring both together and not lose that critical investment for this country and the jobs it brings. It is not just the data centre jobs. It is the engineering jobs and the jobs in the locality that build off that. It is the commercial rates that every council will get from them. If that happens in Arklow tomorrow morning, the commercial rates in Wicklow will go up by 30%. That is a huge volume of money coming in for the county. The development levies are in the region of €30 million. Let us not lose sight of how important some of this investment is to Wicklow. It might mean nothing in Dublin, and it would not mean anything in Dublin. However, if you go to a community like Arklow, which has not had a private housing estate built for 15 years because there is no wastewater treatment plant, this brings new life to it. We have a new wastewater treatment plant. We now have significant capital investment and the likes of LMH delivering high-level engineering jobs based on that industry. Let us have a wider conversation and not just keep coming in here and blaming data centres for everything. That is just an observation.