Data Centres, Energy Use and Climate Change: Motion [Private Members]
Dail Éireann — 2026-06-17
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Ciarán Ahern (LAB), Dublin South-West

We have today been accused of being anti-growth, anti-jobs and even populist in what we are talking about, but Deputies are missing the point. We are legitimately questioning the Government's industrial strategy. Even Deputy Michael Collins accepted that we were relying too much on imported oil and gas. The Government policies, promoted by the Minister, are leading to more oil and gas dependence and undermining any chance we have of energy security, which the Government seems to say is so important. Data centres, car dependence, lifting the Dublin Airport cap and all those measures that the Government is taking are going to lead to increased use of fossil fuels. How is the Government going to square that circle? How is the Government going to continue to grow the economy, which we all want to see, while meeting our legally binding climate, biodiversity and decarbonisation targets?
We are not alone in questioning the continued roll-out of data centres. Just last week, the EU Commissioner for the environment was before the climate committee. She expressed her reservations about the massive amount of water that was going through data centres. She is trying to avoid a water crisis. Communities in the US, including in Pennsylvania and other places, are rising up against huge data centres being built there. Paschal Donohoe, our former finance Minister, in his new role has expressed concerns about the proliferation of data centres across the Continent. How many data centres are enough for this Government? How much are they going to be allowed to add to households' bills.
We are calling for a pause. We are calling for fairness for households and families. We are calling for the Minister to show us his homework on this issue. The Government says it can do it all, so I ask it to show us the climate action plan. In the remarks prepared earlier, we were told that a public consultation on this year's climate action plan was only being opened this week. It is going to be open for another two months. At the time we are debating the budget for 2027, we are only going to be seeing for the first time the climate action plan for this year. That shows us what the Government's priorities are. I ask the Minister to stop undermining the climate Act, bring us the Government's climate action plan and support the Labour Party's motion.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-06-17/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-09-21T01:01:09+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-06-17