Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions Dail Éireann — 2026-05-28 ============================================================ Simon Harris (FG), Wicklow What was definitely not on my bingo card for 2026 was Aontú quoting Friends of the Earth, but politics throws new things at you every day. The issue relating to the cost of electricity and the energy crisis in Ireland is a serious one. That is why this Government, through the Minister, Deputy Calleary, is expanding the fuel allowance. We extended the allowance for a further month in order to help people like those the Deputy referenced. It is also why we have taken a number of decisions to reduce excise on diesel and petrol. The benefit of that from an inflationary point of view is worth about 0.5% in keeping general downward pressure on a rising inflation rate. It is also why we need to accelerate the move towards renewables. There have been some constructive suggestions from Opposition and Government Deputies around how we can do more in relation to making it easier for people to make that transition in terms of their homes or businesses. The Minister, Deputy O'Brien, has already introduced a range of measures that are helping make their homes warmer. Hundreds of thousands of homes have now benefited from direct Government grants to retrofit and replace windows and doors. Of course, there have also been changes regarding electric vehicles. I am interested in the Deputy's position on data centres. It is easy to say that data centres are bad or to make them the bogeyman. I am the Minister for Finance, and the evidence available to the Government is that across the six sectors in Ireland that are identified as being most dependent on data centres, it is estimated that of the order of €100 billion in annual gross value added, 875,000 jobs and €14.6 million in annual employment-related taxes were enabled by data centre capacity located in Ireland. It has also been identified that the hyperscale data centres sit at the heart of Ireland's global digital competitiveness. When I make all these changes the Deputy is calling on me to make in relation to data centres, what does he want to do when we do not have the benefit of the taxes? What does he want to cut? What does he not want to fund? It is so easy to come in here and ask us to spend more. It is easy to slice up the pie, but it is a hell of a lot harder to bake the pie and bake a bigger pie in terms of economic success for this country. It is also important to say that in the context of the Commission for Regulation of Utilities' large energy user connection policy, we have been very clear that data centres above a certain threshold will be required to meet at least 80% of their annual demand with new additional renewable electricity generated in the Republic of Ireland. Government policy firmly aims to enable the twin transitions of digitalisation and decarbonisation. We cannot pick and choose; we have to address both of them. We are talking about AI. We are talking how about how we support AI jobs and how we deal with the fact that there is going to be a significant churn in the labour market. Data centres play a very important role in having a competitive digital economy. We cannot just dismiss that or ridicule it. If we are going to do so, we must at least be honest with the people about the economic and tax impacts that could have on Ireland. If the Deputy puts it out there that a data centre is about four or five lads sitting around with a dog or something and nothing else in terms of economic activity, that is an economically illiterate point to make in relation to data centres. --- 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/2026-05-28/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-09-21T01:01:08+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-05-28