Taoiseach's Meetings and Engagements
Dail Éireann — 2026-06-30
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Peadar Tóibín (AON), Meath West

The vast majority of data centres in Ireland are owned by American technology multinationals. As the Taoiseach knows, data centres are swallowing up increasing amounts of our electricity. They are putting the grid under enormous pressure. The costs in relation to constraints and bottlenecks are so high now that energy companies have to switch off their turbines and energy users have to pay those energy companies to switch off their turbines. Network stabilisation is now one of the biggest elements of electricity bills.
Data centres' insatiable thirst for gas means that we are always pushed into the marginal pricing that gas increases. The Government's policy is part of that problem. Tomorrow we will see massive hikes in the cost of electricity. Will the Taoiseach ensure that the price of electricity for data centres is increased so domestic users will get a reduction in price? Have data centres played any part in his discussions with Donald Trump or the American regime in terms of foreign direct investment?

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Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted.

Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-06-30/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-09-14T01:01:06+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-06-30