Data Centres
Dail Éireann — 2026-09-17
============================================================

Darragh O'Brien (FF), Dublin Fingal East

Deputy Ahern is perfectly entitled to raise the issue. I welcome the fact it has been raised and note it has been raised by three of the Opposition parties. It is a matter that is appropriate for discussion. This is why, in fairness, when I came into this portfolio we looked at the situation and what existed before and moved forward with the large energy user action plan, which is a plan-led approach, looking at regions also. This is the appropriate way to do it. I mentioned to Deputy Daly earlier the PR 6 capital investment in the grid. This takes into account, over the next five- or six-year period, all of the growth that we need across various sectors. It also shows what we need to deliver infrastructurally, such as the north-south interconnector and the Celtic interconnector. It is a year late because of weather and other issues but it needs to be delivered. The acceleration of renewables is critical. In the first five or six months of this year, about 50% of our electricity was generated through renewables. It is certainly going in the right direction, with solar being a major part of our mix. Offshore will be the next critical part and we are expecting planning decisions over the course of the next few months to get these projects into construction between now and 2030. It will be a massive game-changer for the country.

---

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/2026-09-17/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-09-28T05:50:48+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-09-17