Seán Sherlock (Cork East, Labour)
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124. To ask the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform the rationale for the State building its own data centre in Backweston, County Kildare; the estimated cost of same; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [40192/18]

Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael)
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While most Government departments and Public Sector bodies are using or planning to use the Public Cloud for the delivery of services, it is envisaged that there will always be a requirement for on-site hosting of some of our more sensitive data. In this respect, Ireland is no different to the other countries in the EU.

Where we do need to host systems and data on-site, it is beholden upon us to do so in the most cost and energy efficient and secure way. This is best achieved by replacing the plethora of computer rooms and aging data centres with a highly energy-efficient and secure solution utilising the best of modern data centre technologies to minimise carbon emissions.

Consequently, the Government plans to build a new data centre in Backweston, County Kildare and over time retire the existing suite of computer rooms and data centres that exist.

A business case has been developed for the new data centre, however, due to the commercial sensitive nature of this project the OPW, are not obliged to release this information at the current time.