Data Centres
Dail Éireann — 2025-12-18
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Paul Murphy (PBP), Dublin South-West

That is my question. The Minister of State is in the Department of the environment. He cannot just say something and then move on. It is completely illogical to say, on the one hand, that we are committed to this legally binding target of reducing energy consumption but, on the other, that we agree with a decision paper which states that our level of electricity usage will continue to grow and that this is going to be driven by the data centres. You have to pick one or the other. We will either reduce energy consumption or we are going to allow it to increase. Increasing energy consumption is going to lead to a significant increase in greenhouse gas emissions. The latter is because data centres are now directly connected to fossil fuel usage. Originally, it used to be the case that we should not worry and that it would all be renewables. In South Dublin County Council's area, the CRU has made a decision to grant permission for Gas Networks Ireland to connect a gas pipeline to the massive Vantage data centre in Profile Park. That decision states that the emissions will result in 3 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent. Some 32% of the emissions in that area already come from data centres. Emissions are going to go up even further.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2025-12-18/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:29+00:00
Sitting date: 2025-12-18