Energy Policy: Motion [Private Members]
Dail Éireann — 2026-09-17
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Paul Murphy (PBP), Dublin South-West

The Minister is defending the indefensible. That is why he did not really engage with it. He is defending the fact that, when 300,000 people are in arrears on their electricity bills, data centres owned by the richest and most powerful companies in the world are paying half the price the poorest people in the country are expected to pay. He is defending the absolutely indefensible. He is saying that we cannot possibly say that these, the richest companies in the world, which provide very few jobs as we will get onto in a second, should be asked to pay the same as ordinary households, which is a minimal ask. The fact that this would generate €1.5 billion, enough money to give a €500 energy credit to every family in the country and an additional €500 to every family with a disabled member, speaks to how much electricity is being used by these data centres. They are now using almost as much electricity as every single house in this State put together.
This goes to the nub of the issue, which is that this Government is not representing the people; it is representing the big tech companies. That is what it is doing at an EU level. If you read the priorities, you see that they are about pushing a deregulation agenda within Europe as part of the digital omnibus package on behalf of US big tech corporations. It is also what it is doing domestically. On every single front, big tech's data centres are being put before ordinary people.
I really think that more and more people are waking up to the costs of this policy. There are huge costs on multiple fronts, to be paid by ordinary people, as a result of the Minister's prioritisation of these data centres and their insatiable demand for our electricity. There is the actual cost in their pockets, which Friends of the Earth has highlighted very clearly. Extensive research shows that, between 2021 and 2023, the average household paid an extra €263 in their bills because of data centres' usage. How does that work? Data centres are pushing up the total amount of electricity being used. They are using about a quarter of our total electricity. They are thereby increasing the amount of time we spend using gas rather than just using renewables. When you do that, gas sets the price for all the electricity. People are paying the cost of that. That does not take into account the extra money people are paying in network charges.
This report by Dr. Seán Fearon estimates that, in total, between 2015 and 2023, the public paid €715 million extra because of the Government's policy of prioritising data centres. That is just what happened in the past. Let us look at what is going to happen in the future. Without a new energy shock, the average household will pay €461 over the next ten years. However, we are in the middle of a new energy shock because of what is happening in the Middle East. The report's predictions in respect of the increase in the price of oil are modest but, in that scenario, the cost could be €726 million, €1.1 billion or €1.6 billion cumulatively for households. We are talking about the average household in this country paying hundreds and hundreds of euro as a result of the Minister's prioritisation of data centres.
The public is going to pay big time as a result of our failure to meet our climate targets. The Minister has thrown in the towel on climate action. He did so over Christmas, when he said we were not going to meet any of our targets. In the middle of September, we are still patiently waiting for the climate action plan for 2026. The year is almost over.

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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