Electricity Regulation (Climate Action and Connection to Distribution and Transmission Systems) Bill 2025: Second Stage [Private Members]

I move: ""That the Bill be now read a Second Time." Is lá mór bróid dom é an lá seo mar tá mo chéad phíosa reachtaíochta tar éis an Dara Céim a bhaint amach. Táim ag tnúth leis an díospóireacht. Tá súil agam go mbeidh sé go maith agus fiúntach, agus go dtabharfaidh an tAire Stáit a thacaíocht don Bhille. This is the first Bill I have introduced. Its Title continues the long Labour Party tradition of snappy marketing. The Title may be technical but the Bill itself is neat. It is designed to fix a gap in our law and do some good. The Minister of State is aware of my position on data centres. My Labour Party colleagues have repeatedly made clear our view that there should be a moratorium on new data centre construction until we can be sure they will not impact on our ability to meet our climate targets and will no longer push up household energy bills. However, that is not the Government's position. The Bill is very much an attempt to work constructively with the Government on data centre policy. It presents a pretty straightforward proposition that if the Government insists on continuing to connect new very large users of electricity to the national grid, we must ensure those connections are consistent with Ireland's climate objectives and do not place an unfair burden on ordinary households and our electricity system as a whole. My Bill would amend the Electricity Regulation Act 1999 to give the Commission for Regulation of Utilities, CRU, the power to make climate-related requirements a condition of connection to, or use of, our transmission and distribution systems. In particular, the CRU would be able to require applicants to take specified measures to avoid, prevent, reduce, offset or abate greenhouse gas emissions or otherwise advance the national climate objective. The idea for the Bill came about when the CRU published its draft large energy users connection policy last year. There were some positive proposals, particularly the requirement that data centres would have to generate electricity equal to their own maximum import capacity. If they take a megawatt, they must be able to produce a megawatt to return to the grid. That proposal has subsequently been included in the final decision, which is very much a welcome development. However, at the time the CRU published its draft decision, there was nothing said about how the electricity should be generated. No guardrails were proposed against the use of fossil fuels. My concern was that we would simply see data centres building new gas plants on site and locking in more carbon emissions at the very moment we need to be phasing out gas. Obviously, that is less than ideal from a climate perspective and also from an energy affordability perspective in terms of the price effect that our existing reliance on gas is already having. The CRU was asked at the time why it was not considering a renewable requirement. Its response, in essence, was that it did not have the power to do that. Under the Climate Action and Low Carbon Development Act 2015, public bodies must, insofar as practicable, act in line with the national climate objective. However, the Act frames that objective fairly broadly. The CRU's view was that the Act did not give it the explicit authority to mandate specific emission reductions or abatement measures, such as requiring data centres to use renewable generation. I saw that as a fairly serious legislative gap that could undermine our whole climate strategy. My Bill, in short, seeks to address that gap. The power to mandate the types of measures I have outlined is necessary for the CRU to have. For new data centres in particular, the logical application of that principle is that their electricity demand should ultimately be matched entirely by additional renewable electricity. In its final decision on new connections, the CRU instituted a requirement that data centres would have to source 80% of their maximum import capacity from renewables within six years of connecting to the grid. I do not believe that is sufficient. One fifth of the massive amount of energy that data centres consume is a huge amount of new fossil fuel demand. Professor Hannah Daly of UCC has done some great work on explaining the issues with the CRU rules. When energy demand is rising so rapidly in Ireland, largely due to the enormous growth in the data centre sector, we could see a situation where we deploy more and more renewables but, at the same time, our emissions continue to rise. Big gas generators can be seen when driving past any of the data centres on the M50. Fossil fuels will continue to provide power to data centres when renewable generation is unavailable. The CRU's six-year glide path or period of doing absolutely nothing also presents a problem. First, there are no clearly defined interim milestones required from data centres over that time, such as a requirement, for example, to reach 50% renewables within three years. There is not even any need for them to count their emissions over the six-year period. Even more important is that the emissions that build up over those six years are not just cancelled out by data centres providing or procuring renewable energy in later years. Those emissions are cumulative and irreversible. This policy basically means that data centres currently being developed could potentially rely substantially on fossil fuel generation well into the 2030s. It is also worth noting that the 80% renewables requirement is measured on an annual basis rather than requiring renewable generation to match demand at the time it occurs. This is important because wind and solar generation levels vary depending on the time of day and the weather. By contrast, data centre energy demand is hugely inflexible and requires a highly reliable electricity supply around the clock. A company could satisfy an annual renewable energy requirement while still relying on fossil fuel generation for significant periods when wind and solar output is low. That distinction matters. Ireland's electricity system already faces constraints in integrating increasing amounts of renewable generation. Network limitations, limited storage and interconnection constraints can prevent renewable electricity from being available exactly where and when demand occurs. Fossil fuels fill that gap. Without additional investment in the infrastructure needed to balance supply and demand, an annual renewable target does not necessarily translate into equivalent reductions in fossil fuel generation. By allowing that 20% fossil fuel generation, we risk creating a situation where the policy designed to manage the electricity system impacts of data centres will simultaneously encourage investment in new fossil fuel infrastructure. Such infrastructure could operate for decades, potentially creating precisely the kind of fossil fuel lock-in that climate policy should seek to avoid. We are seeing that already with this Government's proposal to build a floating LNG reserve on the Shannon. This is designed to serve the needs of large energy users. Last year, data centres accounted for 23% - almost one quarter - of our energy consumption. Over the next few years, that figure will hit 30%. They will soon be using more energy than every household in the country combined. Remarkably, data centres accounted for 88.2% of the increase in Ireland's electricity demand since 2015. Energy demand from data centres has grown an average of 22.6% per year versus 0.4% for all other sectors of our economy. That seems crazy. Data centres are the defining force shaping Ireland's electricity system, an entire system increasingly organised around the demands of a small number of large corporate users and their interests. Even if we forget about the climate impact, the unfettered growth in data centre energy demand is hitting ordinary households in the pocket. The issues here are twofold. First, there is the enormous stress that the level of energy demand coming from data centres is having on our grid, which is struggling to keep up. For that reason, the Government is now investing billions of euro in upgrading the grid, as well as in new sustainable power generation and additional gas-fired capacity. A confidential memo from the Secretary General of the Department of public expenditure put it plainly: soaring demand, overwhelmingly attributable to data centres, is driving the need for new generation and grid reinforcement. It is not as if data centres will be paying for these upgrades. It will be households who are already put to the pin of their collars who will be footing the bill through higher network tariffs. I point the Minister of State in the direction of a report released this week and commissioned by Lynn Boylan MEP. It looks at the ways in which the cost of the grid investment required to facilitate the ever-growing demands of data centres and other large energy users are socialised across the public. The fact that this is by design is reflected in the title of the report. I quoted a figure of 88.2%. Data centres are responsible for 88.2% of the growth in our energy demand over the past decade. They almost certainly have not paid for the equivalent share in grid investment. They absolutely have not. There is a line in the report that I think perfectly encapsulates the situation. It states that the grid becomes a publicly funded platform for private growth. Households are paying for the infrastructure that keeps data centres running and allows for the continued rapid growth in their energy consumption, in effect subsidising the demands of multinational tech giants The second aspect is the actual price effect that data centre energy demands are having. Trying to concisely explain how energy markets work is a fool's errand, but for the benefit of the record I will give it a shot. Electricity prices function on a system of marginal pricing. The cheapest available electricity source is chosen first by operators to meet demand. Typically, the cheapest energy is renewable. When that is insufficient to meet demand, the next-cheapest source is chosen, and this continues until there is sufficient electricity to meet demand. Crucially, the last source to enter the market, which is the most expensive and is typically gas, sets the wholesale price for all other energy sources in the mix. In effect, when electricity demand is low, renewables can set the wholesale price and energy is cheap. However, when demand is high, gas sets the price and energy becomes more expensive. The thing to consider is that data centre energy demand is remarkably inflexible. It is there all the time. Unlike households or small businesses, data centre power consumption does not fluctuate throughout the day. Where households consume power together during peak periods of the day, such as when making dinner or doing the washing in the evening, data centres' demand profile acts as a rising floor, raising the level of peak demand higher than it would otherwise be and making gas the price-setter more often. Likewise, even during periods of low energy demand from households or other industries, data centres' constant need for energy creates a floor. The inflexibly high level of data centre energy consumption pushes demand above the level of cheap renewable energy more often and, therefore, gas sets the price more often. The impact this has had on household bills was laid out in a report by Friends of the Earth earlier this year. The price is €715 million. That is the price that data centres put on Irish households between 2015 and 2023. It amounts to approximately €360 per household, or in other words, a week's wages for low-income earners. It is anticipated that under a high-demand growth scenario, which on the current trajectory is the likely scenario, data centres could add a further €1.5 billion to household bills over the next decade. This is at a time when more than 500,000 energy accounts are in arrears. To add insult to injury, data centres are paying less for their electricity than ordinary household users. That is why we in the Labour Party and others have said that we need a levy on data centres' energy use. It is deeply unfair that while data centre operators are getting cut-price deals, hard-working families and households are paying through their noses. I know that the Government's point is that data centres are an integral part of our industrial strategy and we cannot do anything to upset the tech companies lest they take their business elsewhere. I do not dispute that data centres and the tech sector more broadly are a vital part of our economy. Data centres are a fact of modern life and enable the digital infrastructure that is more or less indispensable to properly participate in society these days. No one is arguing that. Our issue is with the scale of the growth we are seeing now, particularly with these new proposed hyper-scale data centres used for AI. Not only does the Government appear to have no appreciation of the costs associated with this growth, whether those are costs to our environment or people, it has actively been trying to hide those costs. The report on data centres that was commissioned by the Department of enterprise was, frankly, an embarrassment. Not alone did the Government attempt to grossly exaggerate the number of jobs that data centres provide for Ireland, we know from freedom of information requests that the Government explicitly instructed KPMG to remove sections of the report that highlighted the costs associated with the massive concentration of data centres here. Why is the Government so afraid of having this conversation and doing a genuine cost-benefit analysis of the expansion of data centres in Ireland? Is it because those elements of the report which were excluded from the final copy, on the explicit instruction of the Department of enterprise, drew into question the continued green-lighting of more and more data centres and whether the resources required would be better directed in addressing public services such as housing and transport? All mention of housing was cut from the final report and, particularly relevant for this debate, so too was any question raised around sustainability and energy considerations. Clearly, it was not a genuine attempt by the Government to examine the evidence and formulate policy on that evidence. It was the opposite. The Government had its policy and was looking for ways to justify it, ignoring any potential drawbacks in the process. I will go back again to my Bill and my motivation for bringing it forward. I have fundamental issues with the Government's approach but acknowledge the role that data centres play in modern life. I acknowledge our over-reliance on ICT as a tax base. This is an attempt to work with the Government. If we continue to allow data centres to develop at the current rate, even accounting for the new connection policy, we will see fossil fuel demand continue and emissions from the sector rise and rise.

I welcome the opportunity to discuss the Labour Party's Private Members' Bill on electricity regulation. The Deputy mentioned it in his remarks, but I congratulate him on his first Bill in the House. Unfortunately, having given those congratulations, the Government proposes, as has been indicated, to reject the motion as we are satisfied that the CRU does not require additional powers conveyed upon it to support the furtherance of national climate objectives and that the existing statutory framework is sufficient. The CRU's core statutory functions include, among others, regulating electricity markets, protecting energy consumers and enforcing critical energy safety frameworks. The explanatory memorandum of this Bill notes the CRU's statement in its 2025 proposed decision paper on large energy user connection policy and that the provisions of the climate action Act do not provide a sufficient legal basis to allow the CRU to explicitly mandate specific emissions reductions and offsetting measures for connection applicants. However, in this same document, the CRU states that section 9 of the Electricity Regulation Act 1999 provides the CRU with a basis to take account of renewable energy policy in the development of electricity connection policy. The subsequent publication of the CRU’s large energy user connection policy is a clear example of the CRU using the sufficient statutory powers available to it to support Ireland's climate objectives. Under this connection policy, new data centres are required to meet at least 80% of their annual demand with additional renewable electricity generated in the Republic of Ireland. This pioneering approach by CRU that new data centre demand must be accompanied by substantial additional renewable electricity generation in Ireland is intended to ensure that rising data centre demand provides significant positive support to the achievement of Ireland's wider decarbonisation objectives. To address this point in detail, section 15 of the Climate Action and Low Carbon Development Act 2015, as amended, provides that every public body must, so far as practicable, perform its functions in a manner consistent with: the climate action plan; national long-term climate action strategy; national adaptation framework; and approved sectoral adaptation plans; the furtherance of the national climate objective; and the objective of mitigating greenhouse gas emissions and adapting to the effects of climate change in the State. The Commission for Regulation of Utilities, CRU, is a public body to which these requirements apply and with which they actively comply. Section 9 of the Electricity Regulation Act 1999 further provides for the CRU, in the carrying out of its duties, to have regard to a range of matters including: to promote the continuity, security and quality of supplies of electricity and promote the use of renewable, sustainable or alternative forms of energy. These legal powers, as employed in the CRU’s large energy user policy document, demonstrate that the CRU has sufficient legal competence to impose requirements on large energy users to employ emissions reduction and offsetting measures. The Bill, as proposed, therefore aims to address a perceived gap in legislation which does not, in the view of Government, exist. On this basis, the Government proposes to reject this motion. Data centres are central to Ireland’s modern economy and play a critical enabling role across a wide range of digitally intensive sectors, enhancing the competitiveness of the Irish economy. They strengthen Ireland’s position as a strategic knowledge intensive regional hub for the ICT sector and also support broader retention and expansion of existing investment that support billions of euro in annual economic value for Ireland via high-wage employment, tax receipts and supplier ecosystems. According to independent analysis, the industry employs 19,500 people directly. Our technology sector, underpinned by data centre infrastructure, accounts for approximately 7% of our total workforce and over half of total services exports. Their value is evident and the Government remains committed to supporting sustainable data centre development as a result. It is important to note that unlike countries like the Netherlands, Germany and the UK, Ireland does not host large, energy-intensive industrial sectors. Ireland's industrial electricity demand is primarily concentrated in our digital economy. This is our core energy intensive industry. Germany and other countries consume more electricity to support their heavy industry sites like car manufacturing, steel, and chemicals. Connecting such large energy loads is a challenge that many energy systems across the world are grappling with. In response, the Government’s Large Energy-User Action Plan, LEAP, published in 2026, sets out a plan-led approach for very large and energy intensive investments, including data centres, which, due to scale and energy consumption, will benefit from co-ordinated national infrastructure planning. The LEAP will enable Ireland to capture next generation investment in a planned and managed way and unlock significant associated economic, employment and renewable energy opportunities. Our approach will ensure that sustainability, affordability, competitiveness and energy security remain central to policy. Through effective and focused policies and measures, we are making tangible progress towards objectives of decarbonisation, while supporting sustained economic growth for wider societal benefits. Ireland now has its lowest level of greenhouse gas emissions in 35 years. We are decoupling population growth and economic success from emissions. The Environmental Protection Agency, EPA, now projects that we are close to meeting our first carbon budget, and a reduction in emissions of between 13% and 25% by 2030. The work remains ongoing right across government to implement climate mitigation measures. Ireland is at the forefront of transitioning to an electricity system dominated by variable renewable energy sources, such as wind and solar, and we have achieved record-breaking levels of renewable electricity generation, reducing our reliance on imported fossil fuels. Most notably, emissions from electricity generation are estimated to decrease by between 53% and 60% by 2030. Significant investment has taken place in increasing the technical flexibility of Ireland’s power system to enhance its renewable integration capabilities. The electricity system in Ireland can operate with up to 75% wind and solar at any given moment. The International Energy Agency, IEA, recognised this achievement as remarkable and a global milestone. Ireland currently has over 8 GW of renewable generation capacity, over 5 GW of onshore wind and over 3 GW of solar PV installed, with hydro, biomass and other small sources contributing the remainder. The Government has also prioritised unprecedented investment in our grid of up to €18.9 billion, underpinned by €3.5 billion Government equity investment. This investment will ensure that Ireland's electricity grid continues to provide capacity to support the delivery of Government targets across society and the economy. This investment supports expanding our electricity generation, with a particular priority on renewable energy sources. In addition to investment, the Government is accelerating the roll-out of renewable energy in Ireland by identifying and addressing barriers to the deployment of renewable energy through dedicated cross-sectoral expert groups. These include the accelerating renewable electricity task force, for onshore generation and the offshore wind delivery task force for offshore. These groups bring together senior officials from Departments and State agencies to identify, co-ordinate and prioritise the policies required to support the rapid development of renewable electricity generation. These investments, policies and measures demonstrate that the Government is fully committed to delivering on Ireland’s climate ambition across all sectors and to progressing climate action in a planned and coherent way.

Ba mhaith liom mo bhuíochas a ghabháil leis an Teachta Ahern as ucht an Bhille seo a thabhairt os comhair na Dála. I congratulate him on bring forward his first Bill. I am sorry that the Government is not supporting it, but Sinn Féin certainly will be doing so. The issue of the explosion in the number of these monstrous data centres for AI is once again before the House. Last week, I and na Teachtaí Pa Daly and Deputy Conway-Walsh tabled a Bill which would ensure that any new connections to the grid would be for public benefit as opposed to solely for private profit. We have repeatedly seen cases of data centres being given priority access to the grid ahead of much-needed housing developments. They are hoovering up energy while simultaneously driving up the price of household energy bills. Ireland is a complete outlier in the context of the number of data centres operating and the amount of energy they consume. The UN has cited Ireland as a cautionary tale because of the amount of our energy we are giving to data centres. On average, these data centres consume about 3% of the energy in the EU whereas in Ireland, they consume almost 24% of our electricity. This is absolutely staggering and completely unsustainable. Last week, my Sinn Féin colleague Lynn Boylan MEP published a report on how ordinary households are footing the bill for network expansion driven by and for data centres. The CRU, which ultimately decides who pays for the expansion of our grid, instead of charging those who are driving the demands, such as large energy users and data centres, is socialising the cost. It is spreading costs across all energy users, even though its mandate was that it was set up to protect the consumer. It is charging ordinary workers and families for the enormous amounts of energy that data centres consume. Instead of charging the data centres, this Government is rolling out the red carpet for them and making the taxpayer fund their industry before sites are even developed. What is all this for anyway? This question is being been asked more and more. Unfortunately, the answer might not necessarily be one we want to hear. In recent days, the world's leading AI companies warned the UN Security Council of the risks posed by AI to humanity. Anthropic CEO, Dario Amodei, said that if managed poorly, he believes AI could be a risk to humanity as a whole. We have repeatedly heard these warnings from different individuals who either are or were heavily involved in the AI sector. People will have different opinions about this issue. Some will claim that there is catastrophising and scaremongering taking place, while others may believe that we really are ten years from extinction. The whole thing sounds pretty mad and is very sci-fi. Last week I highlighted the fact that people are saying that this could be corporate or regulatory capture or some kind of stock market scam. Whatever your opinion is - and more intelligent people than me seem to be worried about it - it is clear that there is a certain unknown with AI and that Ireland, as a country with ten times more data centres than any other per capita, is driving its growth. The truth is that we do not know what AI will look like in ten years. Ultimately, we cannot legislate for companies in foreign countries that are in the vanguard when it comes to this technology. However, we can protect people against the negative impacts they are having on people’s energy bills and living standards. That is our job as legislators. In my constituency of Kildare North, there Herbata plans to build a data centre. This project has been much opposed by the residents. They have cited issues such as noise pollution, the water that will be required and the increase in their electricity bills. This data centre, for which planning permission has been obtained, subject to an appeal from An Coimisiún Pleanála, is on 70 acres. In other words, an area of land eight times the size of Croke Park. The residents have mentioned the pressure this will put on the local grid and the fact that Herbata will be given priority access to the grid over new housing developments in the future. We saw how that happened in Lucan recently with the substation that was meant to provide energy to houses but which is being used to power a data centre instead. The Herbata site is also going to need six gas generators connected to it because, although it is meant to provide its own energy, it is going to have need a back-up. At a recent meeting of climate committee, the Irish Congress of Trade Unions stated that as we are at full employment, we only have so many workers. Construction workers cannot all be building data centres; we need houses. That is what the people in my constituency want. Parents want their kids to be able to afford to live in the places in north Kildare in which they have grown up and not to be obliged to move two or three hours down the road, because that will mean that they will not see them or their grandchildren as often. According to research published by Maynooth University today, the State could have built 50,000 new homes using the capital invested in data centres from 2019 to 2024. That is crazy. Those in Fianna Fáil had their knickers in a knot last night about sports grants being announced by Fine Gael. It is a pity they do not get upset about the number of people who are homeless or who need homes or the number who are on waiting lists. All they are worried about are sports grants. Anyway, I digress.

The Herbata data centre is coupled with another potentially monstrous data centre on the Jigginstown site right next door. My constituents are particularly worried about this and the impact it is going to have. The centre at Jigginstown is going to be twice the size of the Herbata one, which would make it 16 times the size of Croke Park. The Herbata data centre on is going to use three times the amount of electricity currently used by homes in Kildare. We just cannot keep up. This is unsustainable. People in Naas feel powerless . The Jigginstown centre is going to be a mere 100 m from houses and schools in the area. People are frightened at that prospect and want accountability. They expect it in a democratic society. Public participation in major connection decisions must be provided for by the Government if it is going to continue down the road of building data centres in exchange for a pat on the head from the tech bros. We have been put in a position whereby we are going to have to hold a protest on the doorstep of Kildare County Council on Monday next, 28 September, at 1.30 p.m., at which we will councillors across the county to reverse the decision to zone the land at Jigginstown for data centres. A motion in this regard is being brought forward by a Sinn Féin councillor because zoning of land is about the only power councillors have any more. I urge all those in the Kildare area to join us and show their support. In relation to the Bill before us, Sinn Féin wants to see low emissions from any connection to electricity transmission and distribution systems. We also believe in the social obligations the State has to build houses. This Bill, in its current form - I am sorry for this - could potentially lead to housing developments being rejected on the grounds that the emissions relating to them would be too high during construction. I am sure we could work on that on Committee Stage. We will be supporting the Bill. While we want to see high-quality houses that are affordable and environmentally-friendly being built. I do not think that Deputy Ahern or the Labour Party would want to see homes not built because their emissions do not meet a certain threshold. I am sure that is not the intention behind the Bill. The Bill tabled by Deputies Pa Daly and Rose-Conway Walsh and I last week would set out a statutory prioritisation for connections that are of public benefit, including housing developments, which is a better way of ensuring public need is put before data centres’ greed. We must ensure that we prioritise housing, school and hospital connections to the grid and not facilitate the insatiable quest for more AI that has been so recklessly brought to our shores by this short-sighted Government.

I thank Deputy Ahern and the Labour Party for bringing forward this Bill. I congratulate the Deputy on his first Bill . He will be happy to hear that, unlike the Government, we will be supporting it. We support what is an attempt to place some limits on data centres being automatically allowed to connect to the national electricity grid, regardless of any consideration of environmental and social costs. We think the time for moderate measures has passed. We should not be having any more data centres connecting to the grid. That is the position of Friends of the Earth, which was very well put forward at the AI committee this week. It has long been the position of People Before Profit. In 2021, former Deputy Bríd Smith brought forward our first Bill in respect of this matter. That Bill would have stopped any more data centres being built. At that stage, Ireland was already an absolute outlier in terms of the number of data centres we had and the percentage of our electricity being used. We are even worse now. Whenever the various data centres that are in the process of being built are completed, we will be even worse again. It cannot be said too many times that data centres are already eating up about a quarter of our electricity supply nationally. People should know that data centres are using 80% of our electricity in Dublin. The new report by Dr. Seán Fearon, Dr. Patrick Bresnihan and Dr. Patrick Brodie should be read by everyone. Its title is very important. It is: How We All Pay for Big Tech: the Social, Economic and Environmental Costs of Data Centres in Ireland. Up until recently, this has been a debate where most people would have been critical of data centres. Most people do not agree with the Government's approach of giving big tech everything that it wants. However, we maybe have not been clear enough that there is a price to be paid by people as a consequence of the Government being completely captured by big tech. Those costs are multiple and environmental. Since 2017, every bit of extra capacity added to the grid from renewable energy has been taken up by data centres. As a result, we are not getting any closer to moving to 100% renewables. I refer to the cost in terms of housing, the opportunity cost of 50,000 homes and the construction jobs that I will get onto maybe later. Instead of building data centres - most of the 19,000 jobs the Minister claimed were directly involved are construction jobs - those people could be involved in building homes. I refer also to: the cost in terms of connecting homes to the grid; the day-to-day financial costs, with hundreds of euro paid by every household in this country as a consequence of the data centres using up so much of our electricity and then pushing us up to the expensive electricity generation and into gas; the extra network charges; and the impact in regard to water. There is excellent stuff in the report to which I refer regarding our water usage. The costs are multiple, and what you see is the Government deciding that, right down the line, big tech will come before people. What is in the report in respect of water is new. When controversy arose in the context of the hosepipe ban over the summer, the Government pointed to dated and limited Irish Water information to say, "No, this is tiny". However, what the report to which I refer provides in an estimate for the first time of overall water usage by data centres. Previous estimates have been limited to their metered water consumption, mainly for cooling purposes, but a much greater factor is the water used in producing electricity for them. The authors of the report estimate that this is equivalent to the water consumption of 340,600 homes, or 18.5% of Irish households. I have already made the point about the 50,000 homes that could have been built if we had not misallocated capital resources to data centres over the course of five years. I want to talk a little about the KPMG report. Over €110,000 was paid by the public to produce a junk science report on the supposed economic benefits of data centres. First drafts were not junk science enough, so the Department had to go back to KPMG and ask it to remove any reference to the extra costs paid for by the public, which was originally in the terms of reference. The Department asked the consultants not to include any reference to opportunity costs in housing or public transport. The email from the Department to KPMG could not have been clearer. It said: ... the exec summary needs to present a strong narrative that considers the full gamut of the economic analysis and provides the evidence base that supports the position that we should continue to further develop our data-centre landscape post-2030 in the context of our climate objectives. Why are we paying for a report that the Government has already written the conclusions of? Why is the public paying for something like this? We are trying to have a debate in society about whether this is good and whether we should go further, and the Government is using public money to get a report where the outcome is predetermined not by the people who are paying for it, who are the public, but by the Government that is directing where the usage will be. There is really useful stuff in the new report that exposes the ridiculous methodology used by the consultants. KPMG went over the top in meeting that request from the Government by producing a report in which it came up with a hyperinflated figure of 876,000 jobs in the country being dependent on data centres. The new report reveals that the methodology used to arrive at the figure was to include, for example, a surgeon working within 50 km of a data centre as one of those 876,000 workers. It did the same for a paediatrician or anyone working in a hospital that is located within 50 km of a data centre. Each of those jobs was counted as being dependent on data centres. Obviously, this is ridiculous. The Minister of State gave a figure of 19,000. When you dig down into the KPMG report, however, the figure for direct jobs is 3,300. That is it. The majority of the rest of the jobs are construction jobs, and those workers could instead be in the building of socially useful things like homes in order to address the housing crisis. This all illustrates how captured by corporations, and big tech in particular, this Government is. It is willing to do anything big tech wants, and that is the role it is playing within the European Union. What is emerging about the Government's role in trying to strip away the right to privacy of not just Irish but European citizens at the behest of big tech is absolutely shocking. The new digital omnibus compromise proposal from the Irish Presidency proposes to end the right of European citizens to the privacy of their personal data in circumstances where that data is used for AI purposes. That is shocking. The Government does not have the courage to stand over that position, but it is very clear if you read the proposal from the Irish Presidency. It is a giveaway of personal data to big-tech corporations. That is the role the Government is playing within the European Union. It is driving a deregulation agenda with all these different omnibuses, but especially with the digital omnibus in this case in order to facilitate a blanket exemption from GDPR rules on the use of personal data for AI. Then there is the AI summit happening as part of the European Council. The Government has said how great it is that it is doing this. The Minister of State, Deputy Smyth, told the AI committee yesterday that this "will be a timely opportunity for stakeholders from all walks of society and from across the globe to discuss and shape how we can collectively address these topical matters." People should go to the website of this AI summit. There is a huge list of speakers. There must be 50 of them. There is not a single critical voice. There is not a single trade unionist to represent the views of workers who are affected by AI and who might lose their jobs as a result of it. There is not a single climate scientist to talk about the impact of AI. There is not a single critical academic or independent civil society person. It is just big tech. Think of any big-tech company in the world and it is going to be there. Despite this, the Minister of State tried to claim that the summit is for stakeholders from all walks of society. When challenged, she said that of course it is industry-based. Thus, it is not from all across society, is it? The outcome is predetermined, just like the KPMG report. The AI summit is similarly about promoting AI in the interests of big tech. This has been a bad week though for the Government on AI and data centres. It comes after the bad week the Government last week. People are waking up to the impact of data centres on electricity prices, energy usage and the degrading of culture, education and so on. That is happening across the world. In America, there is a powerful movement that is succeeding in stopping data centres being built in various states. Meanwhile, the Irish Government is saying that it will accept what is the toxic waste of the 21st century. However, people in this country are growing in confidence and saying that they will not take it. They will not take it in their communities and they do not agree that we should be using more than a quarter of our electricity for these big-tech data centres.

Gabhaim míle buíochas leis an Teachta Ahern for bringing this Bill forward. I agree with him about the fair question. The LEUs across our grid need to come up with solutions as to how they power themselves, how they are benefiting communities and how they are actually contributing. That is where I agree with him in the context of the Bill I brought forward, but there some parts of this Bill I will not be able to support. It is generally just the threshold and how I think the Bill might, in its current form, not only apply to data centres but also any other small industry, factory or apartment development. If that could be amended, maybe I could support the Bill.

I am open to amendments.

Good. I look forward to working with the Deputy on my Bill. I like what the Deputy is trying to do with the Bill. What we really agree on and always will is that section 34 needs to amended. The CRU needs to be at the centre of this. As the Deputy and I know from our work on the climate and energy committee, there is a finger-pointing act going because no one wants to be responsible. Giving more powers to the CRU is something both our Bills are trying to do. I commend the Deputy on the fact that the principle is definitely right. I look forward to working with him in the coming term, including on the committee, to solve this problem. However, the way the Bill is currently formatted adds a hurdle and could add a problem. I understand that the Deputy is trying to make it so that large energy users should not be able to connect to the grid too easily, but it projects the weight onto all. With the new condition he has put in, the measures should and can be phased in after connection. However, the Bill does not say what happens if these are not met. I agree with the Deputy that all LEUs need to cut their emissions. This is something we have to tackle. The different way I am approaching it is that under section 37, a direct line from a generator to a user is effectively blocked. As a result, my Bill would repeal the section and replace it with a clearer system similar to what an Teachta Ahern is doing here, all run by the CRU. I agree that the CRU must decide on an application quicker. I agree that the criteria for the decisions on connections must be objective and non-discriminatory. There can be no disproportionate costs for procedures. Something I would love to see and which the Deputy's Bill alludes to is that if there is another grid connection for an LEU, which could be a data centre, there should be a community benefit fund directly proportionate to the amount of energy the LEU is taking. The CRU also has to be able to approve a whole class of direct lines, and that is where the private wires Bill I am trying to progress would come in. Smaller producers like schools, nursing homes and GAA clubs should be able to share energy more quickly when they are not using it. That is something I think the Minister of State would agree with. I ask him to take the principle of Deputy Ahern's Bill that LEUs should and need to meet their climate responsibilities. The different approach I am taking is one whereby we would give them easier tools to meet those responsibilities. Private wires and direct lines will help this, with clear rules that the CRU will impose and a direct community benefit fund that will be proportionate to the savings of a direct line. Then we will not need to force climate action at the connection point. We will have made it the easiest option and the single sheriff in town - CRU - will dictate that, so I commend Deputy Ahern on his work and I look forward to working with him in the future.

I thank the Deputies from across the House for their contributions during this debate. The Government remains fully committed to delivering on the twin objectives of decarbonisation and digitalisation in a sustainable and affordable manner. The sufficiency of the powers available to CRU through the electricity regulation Acts to achieve those objectives is demonstrated through the large energy user policy, which imposes a requirement on them of 80% of their annual demand being met by renewables generated within the Republic of Ireland. Consequently, we are satisfied that CRU does not require additional powers to be conveyed upon it to support those objectives. While there is a lot of negative discourse around data centres, they are a critical part of Ireland's economic and digital present future and a key part of foreign direct investment. I recognise that Deputy Ahern's contribution did acknowledge that because in our own constituency, there are thousands of jobs that are dependent on the tech industry. Other Deputies in their contributions do not seem to get how important tech companies are to the economy of this country. Whether one likes them or not and whether or not one views them as a bogeyman, they are still very important players in the economy of our country and data centres are part of the tech infrastructure. Data centres have strengthened Ireland's position as a strategic knowledge and intensive regional hub for that sector. They also support a broader retention expansion of the existing investment, which is an investment of billions in annual economic value to Ireland. They also provide high-wage employment; have tax receipts, which certain parties like to spend hand over fist but do not seem to like where they come from; and have their own supplier ecosystems, all of which are important. Data centres are significant investors in Ireland's renewable energy sector primarily through their long-term power purchasing agreement, which supports significant development within it. The CRU's 80% renewable electricity requirement will ensure future growth in data centres will drive further sustainable investment in additional renewable generation capacity and supports Ireland's wider decarbonisation objectives. I acknowledge that data centres should be planned, built and operated in an energy and resource-efficient manner and that should be done in line with Ireland's decarbonisation and energy security. The Government's large energy user action plan, LEAP, published in 2026 provides for such an approach. It set out a plan-led approach for very large energy-intensive investments that due to scale and energy consumption will benefit from co-ordinated national infrastructure planning. What is important is a medium-term plan that will enable Ireland to capture the next generation of investment but in a planned and sustainable way. It represents a key strategic industrial policy in support of the Government's objective to accelerate renewable energy development, expedite grid investment and streamline planning for the next wave of industrial development. Alongside LEAP, the CRU large energy user connection policy establishes a pathway for new data centres to seek connection to the electricity system that addresses the security of electricity supplies and risks system constraints and promotes the renewable energy target. To address the climate crisis, work is progressing right across Government to implement climate mitigation measures. We are focusing on actions that will accelerate the delivery of measures resulting in a reduction in emissions across all sectors of the economy. The recent EPA greenhouse gas report reaffirms this providing evidence of our emission reductions this year. Additionally, it confirms we have decoupled emissions and economic growth, which is by the way a very significant milestone. We remain committed to driving forward the climate agenda with unprecedented investment. Ireland remains a leader as we transition to renewable-based electricity systems with almost half of our electricity in February, March and April coming from renewable sources. Ireland consistently has over eight gigawatts of renewable generation capacity with onshore wind the largest contributor to this. To facilitate further renewable connections and overall growth, Government approval was received in July for a €3.5 billion investment in EirGrid and the ESB to facilitate the investment programme of up to €18.9 billion out to 2030. These plans, policies and investments are all part of the Government's work to reconcile Ireland's need for growth and prosperity and provide our citizens with a shared need to achieve our climate goals and live sustainably.

I thank all the Deputies who spoke here this afternoon and I appreciate the support from Deputies Cronin, Paul Murphy and Heneghan. I thank the Minister of State for being here. Obviously, it would have been preferable if the Minister could have been here but I appreciate the Minister of State is the designated survivor today, so I thank him for his time. I am disappointed to hear he will not be supporting my Bill. Part of the Government might but I guess not all of it and that is what is important. To the extent that it is worth pointing out, I would be open to amendments on this. In response to Deputy Heneghan, section 1(c) of my Bill does have a de minimis capacity level for this to take effect. Obviously, I would be open to looking at that and refining it to ensure that it would not have any adverse effects like Deputy Cronin mentioned. It could happen to apply to a housing estate. That is obviously not the intention of the Bill and that is something that could quite easily be solved on Committee Stage but that does not appear to be to be on the cards, unfortunately. Regarding the opportunity costs associated with the continued proliferation of data centres, Deputies Cronin and Paul Murphy mentioned a very interesting and important study released today by researchers from Maynooth University, UCD and the University of Barcelona that looks at the broader economics around data centres. It was said previously that 50,000 houses could have been built with the resources that have been directed towards data centres over the past number of years. I am afraid to say that the report finds the Government's claim about the economic benefits of data centres to be exaggerated. It is an extensive study so I do not have time to touch on all of it. However, the basic point is that Ireland's data centre sector might appear to be enormous when measured through the multinational heavy gross value-added metric as it was in the Department's report or when dependent economic activity is attributed to data centres as was done in that report but the genuine additional domestically retained economic activity in the data centre sector is smaller than the Government will admit. We know that in the ICT sector, the gross value added to the economy is massively distorted by multinational activity. The KPMG report that the Department commissioned to make the case for data centres uses national accounting data. That can include GDP and other similar measures but the gross value-added in the Irish ICT sector is hugely affected by multinational profit shifting, which means profits accrued due to economic activity elsewhere in the world are simply transferred here or booked here by the Irish arm of these multinational tech firms so the profits can be taxed at our relatively low corporation tax rate. Treating that as evidence of corresponding economic activity inflates the apparent contribution of data centres - at least the ones that are located here. We know that the value in the ICT sector that actually stays in Ireland is relatively small, so much of the activity associated with that industry reflects accounting or tax structures rather than equivalent productivity in Ireland. That is really the point I am trying to make. The study says the data centres are essentially passed through investments or enclave industries and the local economic activity surrounding them is limited relative to the value attributed to the sector in these national accounts. Then, of course, there is the jobs argument around this. In terms of direct employment on the operational side of things, there are around 3,000 jobs across the entire data centre sector and a further 20,000 jobs or so in direct or indirect construction. These are jobs that are temporary in nature. The point is that Ireland has scarce construction workers and skills. An open question to the Minister of State and the Government is whether using this resource to construct more and more data centres is really the best use of that resource. If they are building hyperscale data centres, they cannot simultaneously build houses, transport infrastructure or other important projects in the public interest. We have been scouring Europe for the past year, looking for the 8,000 construction workers we need to build MetroLink, workers who we want to stay here so they can continue the line out to our area in Dublin South-West, as the Minister of State well knows - #metrosouthwest.

I am going to say #metrosouthwest as well. I think we both agree on that, 100%.

It is a comprehensive report. It is worth the Minister of State’s time to read and consider it. I have a couple more points in response to the Minister of State. He mentioned that Ireland’s industrial electricity demand is primarily concentrated in our digital economy and that this is our core energy-intensive industry. That is fine but what is happening at the moment is that multiple Ministers are using this argument to justify continuing the status quo in their own Departments - by "status quo", I mean continuing high levels of emissions. It is fine to say that a justification for data centres is that we do not have any other heavy industry. However, I heard the Minister for agriculture on the radio the other morning using it as justification for continued high emissions in the agriculture sector. Ministers say that we do not have any heavy industry here, and now, this is our heavy industry. If that is the Government’s argument, it can only be used once. The Minister of State can talk to his colleagues about that. The Minister of State also referred to Germany and other countries consuming more electricity to support their heavy industries, which is the case, but in Germany, the level of electricity used for heavy industry is about 25% of its energy. We are rapidly approaching that now with our use of data centres. Again, this is something to watch out for. The Government’s ultimate logic for opposing my Bill is that the CRU already has these powers. That is great - job done. I suppose the logic of everything I have said concerns the impact of the increased reliance on and use of fossil fuels rather than renewables. All of that still stands. If the CRU does have the powers it requires, I would like to see the Government pushing it to go further with its connection policy - further than the six-year, do-nothing glide path for connection to the grid, and further than just 80% renewables. If data centres are said to be so vital to retaining ICT jobs and, crucially, corporation tax in this country, and if it is the Government’s position that data centres are the anchor for those jobs, I would query that. We have very low corporation tax compared to international competitors. We have a highly educated, relatively young, English-speaking workforce. There are plenty of reasons tech jobs are here. They were here before the data centres came. I am not sure data centres play such a huge role in anchoring jobs here. However, if that is the Government’s argument, and if it is the Government’s position that it wants to continue to build data centres, all that is Bill was proposing to do, and all I am asking at this point in time, is to try to do that in as sustainable a way as possible. I understood previously that the CRU’s hands were tied by a lack of this power. The Government is telling me today that the CRU’s hands are not tied, and that it has the power to do this and potentially to do more. I would love to see that happen. I thank all the contributors for speaking today. I appreciate it.