An tOrd Gnó - Order of Business
Dail Éireann — 2026-09-16
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Réada Cronin (SF), Kildare North

There is huge concern in north Kildare about two monstrous data centres that are planned for outside Naas, all to feed the insatiable need for AI. Data centres already consume a huge amount of discounted electricity, while homes and small businesses are paying increasingly high energy bills. Before we broke for the summer, and indeed at a meeting in Naas two weeks ago, people's main concerns were around our grid infrastructure, water, the humming noise from these data centres and the increasing costs to subsidise AI. However, in the last couple of weeks, the CEOs of the top three AI companies have been ringing the alarm bells on AI. While this all sounds very sci-fi - "Terminator 7" nearly - it is unusual for venture capitalists to look for states to bring in some guardrails. I do not know if this is hyperbole or if it is the stock market, but the Government must pull the plug on these data centres and starve the beast of the data. There is an explosion-----

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-09-16/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-09-28T05:50:48+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-09-16