Data Centres, Energy Use and Climate Change: Motion [Private Members]

Deputy Ciarán Ahern

I move:

That Dáil Éireann:

notes that:

— climate change resulted in Irish temperatures in excess of 30°C in May, breaking a 29-year-old record by more than two degrees;

— a United Nations report has described Ireland as a cautionary tale on the environmental impact of data centres;

— the Government is implementing policies that will increase fossil fuel use, by facilitating further new data centres through the Commission for Regulation of Utilities (CRU) Large Energy User (LEU) connection policy, the introduction of private wires legislation, and the construction of a floating terminal for the importation and storage of liquid natural gas, including fracked gas;

— over 22 per cent of our electricity is already used by data centres, this will rise to over 30 per cent by 2030, and to 55 per cent if growth continues as projected, using more power than every other electricity user in the country combined;

— in May, the Climate Change Advisory Council noted that all new renewable energy being developed in the State is being cannibalised by new demand created by data centres, rather than going towards decarbonising homes, transport or industry;

— research projects that the 5.8 gigawatt (GW) of additional data centre capacity under the LEU may result in a doubling of the State's peak demand for electricity generation, and lead to an increase in gas consumption by 2030 against the current projected decline, should capacity be constructed ahead of new renewables capacity; and

— no offshore wind power generation capacity will be available before 2030 despite a 5 GW target;

further notes that:

— Ireland has the highest electricity prices in the European Union, and over 500,000 households are in arrears on their energy bills;

— the increased and inflexible energy demands of data centres means that more and more often gas generation sets the wholesale price of electricity, rather than renewables, resulting in higher prices for households, while Eurostat shows that large energy users pay lower network charges;

— research by Friends of the Earth Ireland, shows that Irish households paid an estimated €715 million more in electricity bills from 2015 to 2023 due to data centres, equivalent to €360 per household, and face an additional €1.43 billion in costs up to 2034, costing each household up to €644 more; and

— the Economic and Social Research Institute has shown that recent energy price increases hit low-income households harder, and that more targeted support measures are needed;

regrets that:

— the Climate Action Plan 2026 still has not been published;

— the final, phase 2 oversight group report of the Land Use Review, was submitted over a year ago and has still not been published; and

— planned legislation to prioritise critical infrastructure will bypass statutory climate obligations;

recognises that:

— data centres are essential infrastructure for the modern digital economy and the development of artificial intelligence technology but are overly concentrated in Ireland, are using an ever-increasing amount of energy, resulting in higher costs for households and businesses, and increased development is now at odds with our climate targets;

— discussion by Government of nuclear power is a nonsense and a form of climate obstructionism which distracts and blocks real climate action; and

— the Government will further increase carbon emissions by lifting the Dublin Airport cap, promoting unsustainable housing and economic development, and by no longer prioritising public transport and active travel investment over roads construction;

condemns the decision of the Government to use the Critical Infrastructure Bill 2026, to disapply Section 15 of the Climate Action and Low Carbon Development Acts 2015 to 2021 from designated projects; and

calls on the Government to:

— publish the Climate Action Plan 2026, and the final phase 2 oversight group report of the Land Use Review without any further delay;

— delete Section 7 of the Critical Infrastructure Bill 2026, and publish the legal advice confirming the constitutionality of the provision to disapply Section 15 of the Climate Action and Low Carbon Development Acts 2015 to 2021;

— suspend the CRU LEU connection policy, and commission an independent study of the impact of data centres on electricity prices, carbon emissions, water usage and grid stability;

— introduce a moratorium on the further construction of data centres until renewable energy from offshore wind comes online, and households and businesses can benefit from lower energy costs;

— introduce a levy on the energy usage of data centres, to recover the higher electricity costs now being imposed on Irish households and businesses;

— confirm by how much Ireland will miss our binding 2030 emission targets, what the cost of securing additional carbon credits will be, and how the next Government will pay for those; and

— immediately reintroduce targeted energy credits and more targeted Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland supports for households in advance of Budget 2027.

We are bringing forward this motion today out of a genuinely held concern that this Government is giving up even the pretence of caring about our climate ambitions. Earlier this year, we had what felt like three months of non-stop rain, leading to severe flooding in parts of the country, including my constituency of Dublin South-West. Just a few weeks ago, Ireland recorded record temperatures above 30°C in May for the first time in almost three decades, shattering a record that had stood for 29 years by more than 2°C.

Speaking of breaking records, I increasingly feel like a broken record when I bring up our climate crisis in this House. In Ireland and globally, we are seeing much more frequent and severe weather events, from droughts to floods to extreme heat. We have moved beyond the point of warning about the potential consequences of climate change. It is here. These consequences are already being felt. Urgency is required to prevent the most catastrophic outcomes - urgency in bringing down our emissions, in our energy transition and in addressing the costs of this perpetual fossil fuel crisis.

However, this Government is failing to acknowledge that there is any urgency. It still has not yet published a climate action plan for this year. It is June. It has failed to publish the land use review, which has been sitting on the Minister's desk for over a year now. The Minister, who is not here, is trying to make a virtue of admitting that we are going to fail miserably in reaching our 2030 carbon reduction targets. What is another few years? This Minister will be long gone from the climate brief by the time any of this matters.

Not only is this Government failing to act with any real urgency to decarbonise; it is also actively pursuing policies that are moving us in the opposite direction. This motion seeks to address some of this Government's failings when it comes to climate, starting with the most obvious example - the rapid expansion of data centres and the consequences their growth is having on our climate obligations and on household energy bills.

None of us here are Luddites. We accept and understand that data centres are part of a modern economy and industrial strategy. We all have a mobile phone; we all use cloud services. Many of us even use artificial intelligence, AI, though certainly not for parliamentary questions. This is not a question about whether data centres should or should not exist, and I hope the Government does not try to reduce the debate to those binary terms again. The debate has moved on. The question is whether we are content to continue to allow unlimited expansion of these data centres without regard for the very real consequences on people and our environment. This is a question of the Government's industrial and economic strategy as much as it is a question of our climate obligations and the cost-of-living implications of this strategy. The Government must be honest about the consequences and costs of allowing more and more of our energy to be used by data centres. It must be honest that much of the legislation it is pushing through is designed to facilitate and placate large energy users. I refer to the private wires Bill, the strategic liquefied natural gas, LNG, emergency reserve, which will import highly polluting fracked gas, and the Commission for Regulation of Utilities, CRU's, new large energy user policy. Who knows what kinds of fossil fuel-guzzling projects a future Minister might deem to be critical infrastructure if that particular Bill passes?

The UN has described Ireland as a cautionary tale regarding the environmental impact of data centres. I would hope that would be a wake-up call for the Government but I will not hold my breath. Perhaps the Friends of the Earth report published a couple of weeks ago will be more impactful. It concluded that €715 million had been added to household bills between 2015 and 2023 as a direct result of data centre energy demands pushing up prices. A further €1.5 billion could be the price households pay for data centres over the next decade. This is at a time when, according to the latest figures from the CRU, more than 500,000 households are in arrears and cannot afford to keep up with their energy bills. We already have the highest electricity prices in the EU and this is, in part, directly attributable to data centres.

As our motion says, the massive energy demand from data centres means that gas is setting the wholesale price rather than renewables, making everyone's electricity more expensive. This is only going to get worse if we continue to build more and more of them. Data centres currently consume 22% of the electricity in this State. This is projected to grow to 30% by 2030 and they could ultimately consume as much as 55% of all the electricity demand in Ireland. This is insane. That is more than every household, school, hospital, small business, farm and factory combined. An entire energy system is increasingly organised around the demands of a small number of large corporate users and their interests.

That is why we are calling for the introduction of a levy on data centre energy usage. It is about fairness. Not alone are data centres pushing up prices for everyone else but we have a ludicrous situation where they are actually paying less than your average punter in network tariffs. If data centres are contributing to higher costs across the electricity network, then it is reasonable that they should contribute more towards those costs. It is not about punishing data centre operators or deterring investment. It is simply about making sure that ordinary households are not left footing the bill, which is currently the case.

What is particularly alarming is that the Climate Change Advisory Council has warned that all new renewable energy is being cannibalised by the growth in demand from data centres rather than decarbonising out transport sector, agriculture, industry or home heating. The Government's response to all of this has basically been, "Yeah, but jobs". However, the recent KPMG report commissioned by the Government makes the absolutely laughable claim that 900,000 jobs are attributable to data centres. The actual number of jobs directly created by data centres is around 19,500, the vast majority of which are in construction and are temporary in nature. The actual figure is about 3,000 ongoing jobs. That is not to be sniffed at, but is it worth building an entire energy system around and dumping our climate targets for? I would say the jury is out on that one.

The Government will say it is encouraging more renewables because 80% of the energy for our new data centres must come from renewables, but even with that, the remaining 20% will lead to a potential doubling of our peak gas demand. This means more imported fossil fuels, more emissions, more exposure to international energy price shocks and, ultimately, higher bills for hard-pressed Irish households. That is why we are calling for a moratorium on further data centre expansion. We want a pause until we have sufficient renewable capacity so we can ensure they are not impacting on our decarbonisation efforts or pushing up prices for ordinary households.

An additional concern addressed in our motion is the Government's Critical Infrastructure Bill and the disapplication of section 15 of the climate Act. Of course we want to see Ireland's infrastructure deficit filled. We have had a decade of wasted prosperity under Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil Governments and it is typical that they would now seek to point the finger for their failures to build our necessary infrastructure at anyone but themselves.

They are punching down on the environment. However, we need to be clear that seeking to uphold our environmental and biodiversity laws is not the cause of the delays in getting vital infrastructure built in a timely fashion in this country. It is resourcing issues. For years, our planning authorities, courts and public bodies have been under-resourced. That is the reason we are seeing decisions taking years and years, delaying delivery. That is not the fault of environmental law. It is a fault of Fine Gael's and Fianna Fáil's lack of strategic planning. None of the 20 delays to the completion of the National Children's Hospital is due to the environment. Section 15 of the climate Act exists for a reason. It ensures that our public bodies act consistently with our climate objectives. Removing it suggests that those objectives apply only when it is convenient and can be set aside when it is politically inconvenient. I will continue on this later.

Deputy Ivana Bacik

I commend my colleague and our climate spokesperson, Deputy Ahern, on proposing this motion, which I am delighted to second on behalf of the Labour Party. In my constituency of Dublin Bay South, we saw the largest mobilisation of young people in the first school strike for climate in 2019. My constituency is also home to a great many people working in the tech sector. However, it is also a constituency where many households are now struggling to make ends meet, in part due to the outrageously high cost of energy.

I make these points at the outset to illustrate the strong connection between the climate crisis, the cost-of-living crisis and the future of our economy and our workplaces. The connection here is so clear for the working families I represent. Every month, and the Minister of State will be aware of this, people open electricity bills they can scarcely afford. They watch prices rise, while they see people in other countries like Spain, which have invested heavily in renewables, availing of cheaper, cleaner energy. Ireland still has some of the highest electricity prices in Europe. More than 500,000 people are in arrears on their energy bills. Energy security is a buzz word for Government when it comes to justifying liquefied natural gas but less so when it comes to being honest with people about data centres.

As Deputy Ahern pointed out, data centres are now consuming more electricity than all urban households combined and that demand is set to grow. It seems the demands of multinational tech corporations have an outsized influence on national energy policy for this Government. I say none of this to diminish the importance of tech jobs. I know it well as local TD. However, there is a balance to be struck with the needs of working families and, indeed, other sectors and other businesses matter too. At present, what renewables we do bring on stream, the capacity is immediately being swallowed by the growing demand from data centres instead of reducing bills for households or improving our energy security. That is why in this motion, the Labour Party is calling for a levy on energy used by data centres and a moratorium on the introduction of new data centres until bills come down. We need to see offshore wind generation operating and capable of supporting that growth. We need that renewables revolution that we have seen driven by a socialist Government in Spain and that we have seen in other countries. We need to see a Government that is using evidence to drive energy policy, not just acquiescing to the calls of tech giants and fossil fuel lobbyists.

Before I finish, I want to emphasise that for Labour and for all of us, the debate should also be about jobs because the same artificial intelligence, AI, revolution driving demand for data centres is reshaping our labour market. Companies are selling AI and marketing its use as a way to flatten teams, which is a euphemism for cutting jobs. Young graduates are seeing diminished job prospects as early-stage AI lay-offs really cut deep. Generative AI is also having serious ethical implications due to the risk of mass theft of intellectual property. The Government is sleepwalking through an AI revolution. As a tech hub, we have an opportunity to lead on a just green transition for quality jobs, a renewables revolution and finally being able to meet our climate targets.

Deputy Robert O'Donoghue

I want to acknowledge my party colleagues today for bringing forward this motion because ordinary working - people I represent Dublin Fingal West - are to the pins of their collars trying to pay for heating their homes, filling the cars and putting food on the table. Ireland has the highest costs of energy prices in the EU, and why? It is because this Government continues to hand incentives, discounts and preferential treatment to some of the wealthiest corporations on the planet for their data centres. These are companies and tech billionaires who do not need a subsidy from the Irish taxpayer. The cost of these decisions is being carried by ordinary people struggling through crisis after crisis. We are living through a series of crises. It is an omnicrisis happening all at once: a housing crisis; a fuel crisis; a food and cost-of-living crisis; a childcare crisis; health and mental health crises; and a disability crisis. People are exhausted, angry and frustrated. That frustration is turning into resentment because they feel that the system is working for powerful interests and not working for them. At the same time, millions of euro are being poured into data centres, AI infrastructure and corporate expansion, while households are told to tighten their belts and accept ever-rising bills. This is where the climate crisis comes in.

The climate crisis is deeply connected to every one of these pressures I have mentioned for working families. However, too many people have been led to believe that climate change is somehow a distant issue. There is no point in telling people that temperatures are rising when what they are living through is extreme weather, such as flooding that is ripping up the roads and damaging homes. The climate crisis is driving food insecurity through higher food prices and reduced access to good, nutritious food. It contributes to energy instability and rising fuel costs. It places greater pressure on public services in the communities that are already stretched to breaking point. If we continue to protect corporate profits while asking ordinary people to bear the burden, we fail on both social justice and climate. The answer is not to make working families pay more. The answer is to make the biggest polluters and wealthiest beneficiaries of our energy system pay their fair share. We must use that revenue to lower bills, strengthen public services and build resilience against the crises people are facing every day. For the people struggling to keep the lights on, fill the tank and feed their children, that will be the understanding of climate crisis - it is not separate from their lives; it is woven into them. Until we address those realities together, we will solve none of them.

Deputy Duncan Smith

This Government is going backwards with climate change. I commend Deputy Ahern on this motion and his commitment to bringing home to all the people of Ireland the impact that data centres are having not only on our climate but also on their household bills and the cost-of-living crisis. The UN has referenced us as a cautionary tale. Yet, does Ireland listen? No. When the tech bros call, this Irish Government jumps and asks, “How high?” Its amendment to the motion is absolutely embarrassing. It opens with the point that the Environmental Protection Agency, EPA, states that we are moving in the right direction. The Minister, Deputy O'Brien, did a media tour two weeks ago and admitted that we are nowhere near hitting our carbon reduction targets. He admitted it. This Government admits that, at best, if everything goes in the right direction for it, it will get a 25% reduction in emissions. It is, quite frankly, embarrassing. What is this Government also allowing to happen? What is this Government allowing to be brought to the debate? It is allowing its own backbenchers to start to talk about nuclear power and bring that into the debate when so many other European states have either ended their reliance on nuclear power or are phasing it out. Italy, Germany, Lithuania, Belgium and Spain are all at different levels of either ending nuclear power or have pledged to reduce it. What is Ireland doing in 2026? We are going to bring nuclear power back in, so let us have a grown-up debate about it. It is absolutely pathetic.

This Government and this Minister are all over the place on climate and not just the big level in terms of power generation and data centres, but right down to public transport. I do not accept that this Minister is new in the brief. He understands from his previous brief the importance of climate mitigation measures when it comes to transport. In the constituency we share in Donabate where there has been an awful lot of house building, we have only seen one new bus in the morning with no return bus in the evening. We have seen no movement on the four-track solution for the northern commuter line, which is the most congested commuter line in Ireland. My colleague, Deputy O'Donoghue, will attest to that. It is absolutely pathetic. I also want an answer in terms of what this Government is allowing to happen with Dublin Bus routes. Our understanding is that Dublin Bus is now going to have to take 35 old EV and AX models in to busy routes in Dublin city centre while Go-Ahead Ireland is going to get 35 new electric or hybrid vehicles on less busy urban routes because Go-Ahead Ireland is failing to deliver a service on those routes. Air quality in Dublin city is one of the worst in Europe and this Government is forcing Dublin Bus to take old buses and disimprove that air quality. It is an absolute disgrace from top to bottom.

Deputy Ged Nash

As my colleague Deputy Smith said, the Government's countermotion is embarrassing and shameful. Really, it is a Comical Ali-type approach to politics.

It does good government, and the idea of good government, a disservice. Frankly, we need to put the breaks on the development of data centres, at least until our grid capacity increases and household bills come down.

If this Government put more energy, pun intended, into developing our offshore wind capacity rather than developing more data centres, we might build the kind of resilience we need in our grid for industry and domestic customers to avail of plentiful and cheap energy, but as usual the Government is putting the cart before the horse and is left wondering why the cart is not pulling. The Government has made, and will make today, all kinds of thin arguments to say we are wrong. It will argue that data centres create jobs. The reality is they take up massive acreage and resources and create only a comparatively small handful of long-term jobs. As the motion lays out, over 22% of our electricity is already being used up by data centres and by 2030 that will be over 30%. At the current rate of growth, it will not be long before over half of our electricity is eaten up by this one source.

As colleagues have said, Ireland has the highest electricity prices in the EU. The fact we are also the European leader in data centre permissions is no accident, and this Government needs to join the dots. There is a direct link between the proliferation of data centres in the country and ever-rising energy bills. Research by Friends of the Earth shows that Irish households paid an estimated €715 million more in electricity bills from 2015 to 2023 directly due to data centres. That is an equivalent of some €360 per household. In effect, in Ireland, under this Government, each bill payer is charged a data centre tax. The same research shows that Irish households face a further €1.43 billion in rising bills up to 2034 because of the projected growth in data centres. That will mean an extra €644 per household on household bills.

These are the same bills for which the Government used taxpayers' money to help pay for energy credits in recent years. Think about that – these are effectively more taxpayer subsidies for data centres. These increases I referred to will disproportionately impact on lower income households. That is why in this motion we are also calling for targeted energy credits and SEAI supports for households in budget 2027.

The motion also makes clear Labour’s opposition to the decision made in the Critical Infrastructure Bill to disapply section 15 of the climate Act. This is constitutionally dubious and is wide open to challenge. That Bill is concluding in the Seanad this week and it is not too late for the Government to change course.

An Cathaoirleach Gníomhach (Deputy Aindrias Moynihan)

Gabhaim comhghairdeas leis an Aire Stáit nua. Go n-éirí an t-ádh lei ina phost nua. I offer the Minister of State many congratulations on her new role. I call on her to move the Government’s amendment.

Minister of State at the Department of Justice, Home Affairs and Migration (Deputy Catherine Ardagh)

I move amendment No. 1:

To delete all words after "Dáil Éireann" and substitute the following:

"notes that in relation to Climate Action:

— last month, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) launched its latest Ireland's Greenhouse Gas Emissions Projections 2025-2030, which show that we are moving in the right direction and improving our performance compared with the previous year;

— for the first time, the EPA now projects that we are close to meeting our first carbon budget, following a consistent trend of improving projections for that budget over recent years;

— the EPA is projecting a decrease in emissions of between 13 per cent and 25 per cent by 2030 (from 2018 base);

— emissions are reducing across many sectors while our population is growing, and our economy is growing;

— we now have the lowest level of greenhouse gas emissions in 35 years, and we have decoupled growth from emissions;

— Ireland is at the forefront of transitioning to an electricity system dominated by variable renewable energy sources, such as wind and solar, and indeed renewable sources generated almost half of Ireland's electricity in February, March and April of this year;

— significant investment has taken place in increasing the technical flexibility of Ireland's power system to enhance its renewable integration capabilities – through storage and other technologies;

— the electricity system in Ireland can operate with up to 75 per cent wind and solar at any given moment; and

— there are now 241,000 electric and hybrid vehicles on Irish roads;

in relation to, energy affordability:

— the Government is deeply aware of the pressures placed on households and businesses by high energy costs, and has taken a number of steps to support households and business;

— the National Energy Affordability Taskforce (NEAT) was established in June 2025 to identify, assess and implement measures that will enhance energy affordability for households and businesses while delivering key renewables commitments and protecting security of supply and economic stability;

— in recent months the Government introduced a €750 million package of fuel supports, which is among the largest per capita of any European Union state, while Budget 2026 had a range of other measures;

— the Value-Added Tax (VAT) rate on electricity bills has been reduced to 9 per cent VAT until 2030;

— enhanced social protection payments have been introduced, including an increase to the fuel allowance rate and an expansion of the eligibility rules, which applies to about a quarter of Irish households; and

— the NEAT continues to work intensively on an energy affordability action plan to be submitted to the Government in quarter 3 of this year;

in relation to, infrastructure delivery:

— a record allocation of €640 million in Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland (SEAI) retrofitting schemes;

— since 2019, we have invested over €1.8 billion in retrofitting, and we have been able to provide energy upgrades for 268,000 homes;

— in the first quarter of 2026, over 12,000 homes have been upgraded through SEAI schemes, including over 1,500 homes at risk of energy poverty under the Warmer Homes Scheme;

— since the formation of this Government, over 70,000 homes have been upgraded, including over 9,000 homes at risk of energy poverty under the Warmer Homes Scheme;

— Ireland currently has over 8 GW of renewable generation capacity, and onshore wind is the largest contributor to this, with over 5 GW of wind generation capacity and 2.5 GW of Solar Photovoltaics installed, with hydro, biomass, and other small sources contributing the remainder;

— Government approval was received in July 2025 for €3.5 billion investment in EirGrid and ESB to facilitate the investment programme of up to €18.9 billion out to 2030, and connection of 5 GW offshore wind; and

— the Critical Infrastructure Bill 2026, is a timely and important piece of legislation and will make a significant contribution to the prompt delivery of nationally important infrastructure, whilst maintaining robust regulatory, environmental and planning safeguards;

in relation to:

— data centres are a very important part of Ireland's economic and digital present and future, and a key part of our value proposition for foreign direct investment;

— the recent KPMG study on data centres, undertaken on behalf of the Department of Enterprise, Tourism and Employment, reports there are 19,500 directly employed in the industry;

— Ireland's industrial electricity demand is primarily concentrated in our digital economy, this is our core energy intensive industry;

— the Commission for the Regulation of Utilities (CRU) Data Centre Connection policy published in 2025, clearly set out what is required for a new data centre connection, including the requirement to get 80 per cent of its energy through new renewable sources; and

— the CRU decision simply refers to market research data on 5.8 GW of prospective interest in data centre growth, rather than linked to any contractual demand in place at present; and

further recognises that:

— the Government is committed to taking further action to deliver on the twin objective of decarbonisation and digitalisation in a sustainable and affordable manner;

— the Government is committed to delivering on Ireland's responsibility to address the climate crisis, and work remains ongoing right across Government to implement climate mitigation measures every single day of the week;

— the priority is driving implementation, particularly on high-impact measures with multiple societal and economic benefits;

— the Climate Action Plan will be more focused on the most impactful measures and will report on the ones that make the biggest difference;

— the NEAT continues to work intensively on an energy affordability action plan to be submitted to the Government in quarter 3 of this year; and

— the Government's Large Energy User Action Plan, published in January 2026 sets out a 'plan-led' approach for very large and energy intensive investments, which due to scale and energy consumption will benefit from coordinated national infrastructure planning.".

I welcome the opportunity to discuss the Labour Party Private Members’ motion on data centres, energy use and climate change. However, the Government proposes to reject this motion and put forward a countermotion. The Government is fully committed to delivering on Ireland’s climate ambition across all sectors and to progressing climate action in a planned and coherent way.

Our approach ensures that sustainability, affordability, competitiveness and energy security remain central to this policy. This is reflected in our countermotion, where we demonstrate through effective and focused policies and measures that we are making tangible progress towards objectives of decarbonisation while supporting sustained economic growth for wider societal benefits.

With regard to climate action, Ireland now has the lowest level of greenhouse gas emissions in 35 years, decoupling population growth and economic success from emissions. The EPA now projects that we are close to meeting our first carbon budget, and a decrease in emissions of between 13% and 25% by 2030. The work remains ongoing right across government to implement climate mitigation measures. The priority is driving implementation, particularly on high-impact measures with multiple societal and economic benefits.

Climate action plans 2024 and 2025 provide the basis for this progress. Work is under way on the next climate action plan, with public consultation launched this week. The plan will continue to focus on the most impactful measures. For example, Ireland is at the forefront of transitioning to an electricity system dominated by variable renewable energy sources, such as wind and solar, and we have achieved record breaking levels of renewable electricity generation, reducing our reliance on imported fossil fuels.

Most notably, emissions from electricity generation are estimated to reduce by between 53% and 60% by 2030. Significant investment has taken place in increasing the technical flexibility of Ireland’s power system to enhance its renewable integration capabilities. The electricity system in Ireland can operate with up to 75% wind and solar at any given moment. The International Energy Agency, IEA, recognised this achievement as remarkable and a global milestone.

Ireland currently has over 8 GW of renewable generation capacity, with over 5 GW onshore wind and 2.5 GW of solar PV installed, and hydro, biomass and other small sources contributing to the remainder. The Government has also prioritised unprecedented investment in our grid - of up to €18.9 billion, underpinned by €3.5 billion Government equity investment - and expanding our electricity energy generation, with an emphasis on renewable energy sources, which will be advantageous for all customers and will ensure Ireland's electricity grid continues to provide capacity to support the delivery of Government targets across society and the economy.

Infrastructure delivery, and having a grid that is fit for purpose to support this, is critical to future success. The Critical Infrastructure Bill is a central pillar of the Government's accelerating infrastructure report and will make a significant contribution to the prompt delivery of nationally important infrastructure while maintaining robust regulatory, environmental and planning safeguards. Accelerated delivery of infrastructure does not disapply our climate commitments or our national level targets, but recognises an urgent need for the completion of major infrastructure projects in the State.

The Bill provides for the disapplication of section 15 of the Climate Action and Low Carbon Development Act 2015 in very limited circumstances for programmes and projects designated as critical infrastructure. It does not disapply our climate commitments or our national level targets. It will lead to a better balance in decision-making that will lead to accelerated infrastructure while also preserving the rights of the public to access the courts on the legality of the decisions of public bodies.

The motion also raised a number of concerns with respect to data centres. Data centres are central to Ireland's modern economy and play a critical enabling role across a wide range of digitally intensive sectors, enhancing the competitiveness of the Irish economy. They strengthen Ireland’s position as a strategic knowledge intensive regional hub for the ICT sector and also support broader retention and expansion of existing investment that supports billions in annual economic value for Ireland via high-wage employment, tax receipts and supplier ecosystems.

According to independent analysis, the industry employs 19,500 people directly. Our technology sector, underpinned by data centre infrastructure, accounted for approximately 7% of our total workforce and over half of total services exports. Their value is evident and the Government remains committed to supporting sustainable data centre development as a result. It is important to note that unlike countries like the Netherlands, Germany and the UK, Ireland does not host a large, energy-intensive industrial sector. Ireland's industrial electricity demand is primarily concentrated in our digital economy. This is our core energy-intensive industry. Germany and other countries consume more electricity to support their heavy industry sites like car manufacturing, steel and chemicals.

Connecting such large energy loads is a challenge many energy systems are grappling with across the world. In response, the Government’s large energy user action plan, LEAP, published in January 2026, set out a plan-led approach for very large and energy intensive investments, including data centres, which due to scale and energy consumption will benefit from co-ordinated national infrastructure planning.

LEAP will enable Ireland to capture next generation investment in a planned and managed way and unlock significant associated economic, employment and renewable energy opportunities. Alongside LEAP, the CRU data centre connection policy sets out what is required for new data centre connections, including the requirement to get 80% of its energy through new renewable electricity generated in Ireland.

The Government is acutely aware of the pressure faced by high energy costs and is taking action to help households and businesses with the cost of energy. In recent months the Government introduced a €750 million package of fuel supports, which is among the largest per capita of any EU state. Previously, the Government included a range of measures in budget 2026 to help households with energy costs, namely, an extended VAT reduction on electricity and gas bills until 2030, an increase to the fuel allowance payment and expanded eligibility, which applies to about a quarter of Irish households, and a record allocation of €640 million for SEAI retrofit home energy upgrade schemes.

Since 2019, we have invested over €1.8 billion in retrofitting and we have been able to provide energy upgrades for 268,000 homes. These upgrades protect those homes and families from energy shocks and reduce their costs and energy consumption.

The national energy affordability task force is working intensively on an energy affordability plan, which will be submitted to the Government in quarter 3. It will include measures that will enhance energy affordability for households and businesses while delivering key renewables commitments and protecting security of supply and economic stability.

In closing, I reiterate that the Government’s amendment reflects the reality of the commitments in place and more importantly the tangible progress being made and further actions being taken to support and reduce emissions and to retain a prosperous and competitive economy, with targeted supports for households and businesses as required.

The Government is committed to delivering on Ireland's responsibility to address the climate crisis, and work is ongoing on the next climate action plan. Work across our governance structures, key sectors and in government is under way to outline the key deliverables to continue to reduce our emissions in the most impactful of ways. The national energy affordability task force continues to work intensively on an energy affordability action plan to be submitted to the Government in quarter 3 of this year.

The Government’s LEAP advances a plan-led approach for very large and energy intensive investments that will facilitate future investment while unlocking Ireland’s renewable energy opportunities. I reiterate that the Government rejects the Labour Party motion, and I propose the Government amendment that more accurately reflects the reality of the situation.

Deputy Conor Sheehan

I congratulate the Minister of State on her appointment, and that is probably where the good news ends.

I am very disappointed with the Government's amendment. In fact, I found parts of it quite laughable. "Sustainable data centre development" almost sounds like someone coming along 30 or 40 years ago and saying that we need to move sustainable smoking, and that if a person smokes a packet of Marlboro Lights, it is not as bad.

It is not just about electricity, water and carbon emissions. We have seen that data centres place considerable strain on local infrastructure. We are literally halfway through the year. Notwithstanding the fact that the climate Minister is not here, where is the climate action plan? We need to introduce a levy upon data centres to help offset the costs and to drive down the extraordinarily high bills that the people we all represent are struggling with.

The concern that I have is that we are in the middle of an industrial revolution when it comes to artificial intelligence, and this Government is fumbling around in the dark. There was a report by the Economic and Social Research Institute, ESRI, a couple of months ago that found that one in 14 jobs could be affected by AI. We could be looking at widespread labour displacement, yet I am hearing nothing from the Government that inspires me with confidence that it knows how to navigate its way through this. Any data centre growth must be aligned with offshore renewables.

In the time I have left, I want to talk about housing because climate can and must be a critical consideration of the Government's response to the housing crisis. The Government set a target that 500,000 homes would be retrofitted to a BER of B2 by 2030, and that 400,000 heat pumps would be installed. According to the SEAI, we had only 80,000 retrofits between 2018 and 2025 and only 18,765 heat pump installations. These numbers are way off target.

I do not understand what the Government is doing in respect of this new electric car grant because the biggest issue that my constituents raise with me about the transition to electric vehicles is the lack of an adequate charging infrastructure. Electric cars are actually getting cheaper and outselling diesel and petrol cars at the moment, which means that the market is working. Instead of gimmicky grants, we need to see investment in the charging infrastructure.

Deputy Mark Wall

I want to start by thanking my colleague, Deputy Ciarán Ahern, for bringing forward this very important motion and for all of the work he is doing on this issue.

Ireland has one of the highest electricity costs in Europe. Eurostat recently reported that prices in Ireland were nearly 40% above the EU average. It seems that every other week an energy provider is upping its prices once again. The Government cannot continue to sit on its hands while this happens.

Many workers are just surviving, going from bill to bill, while those hardest hit like older people, carers and people with disabilities are afraid to turn on the lights or heating. Over 500,000 households cannot afford to pay their gas or electricity bills. We need a targeted energy credit to help workers and families that are struggling with the high cost of energy. The Labour Party has continued to call for this because it would provide immediate relief to those struggling, but the Government continues to turn its back on workers.

Workers, older people, carers and people with disabilities must be prioritised when we talk about targeted measures. We need to get greater investment in supports and grants that help these households retrofit their homes, so that they are protected from ongoing price shocks like we are seeing at the moment.

We need to look at fully funded grants for these households. I want to give the Minister of State the example of an older man who called into my office this week. He is trying to access the SEAI's one-stop-shop to retrofit his home, which is in a very poor condition. He was quoted €850 for a survey and consultation, with a grant available of €350, meaning that he would have to come up with €500 of his own money just to start this process. That is simply not money that people like the person who came to my office have lying around.

I acknowledge that the Government has made increases in these grants. The warmer homes scheme grant is one of the best grants for those who qualify, but waiting an average of two years for works on many homes, and particularly for those who need it most, is just not sustainable. We are in the middle of a cost-of-living crisis where every euro is being counted. People do not have the money to make these upgrades to their homes, and the Government needs to do more.

Workers and families are facing higher bills because the Government supports data centres more than working people. We need to put an immediate stop to the building of data centres, which are using more than 20% of Ireland's electricity and are on track to be largest electricity users in this country. We cannot let this continue. We cannot become the data centre capital of Europe.

The Labour Party's motion calls for the Government to put workers first, tackle the high energy bills they are facing and provide fully funded grants so that households can retrofit their homes. The Government must take this issue seriously and finally show up for workers.

Deputy Eoghan Kenny

I wish my former public accounts committee colleague, the Minister of State, Deputy Ardagh, the very best in her role. It is probably remiss of me to mention that there are the Minister and two Ministers of State in this Department, yet none of them is able to show up for this debate. I commend my colleague, Deputy Ciarán Ahern, and his staff for the work they have done in bringing this motion to the Dáil Chamber.

When we discuss the rising costs in energy bills being paid by households, it is vital that we look at where the energy from the grid is going, what it is being used for and what we, the Irish people, are getting out of it.

Data centres employ relatively few people. The level of employment relating to data centres is in the construction of them and, of course, those projects are time limited. In turn, I strongly encourage Ministers to stop trying to muddy the waters between the employment within a data centre and the employment in the construction of a data centre. It is dishonest and we should not have such conflation coming from Ministers.

In the pre-election budget of 2024, the Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael Government introduced energy supports. Post election, the new Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael Government scrapped these supports. I am not in favour of introducing one-off measures, but targeted supports are necessary, and the Government failed to provide them to the carers and people living with disabilities, the most vulnerable people in this society.

However, when there is no short-term solution, an advancement in the construction of renewable energy and renewable energy infrastructure is not a swift process.

The State must act to ensure that households are not being pinned to their collar just for heating and running their homes, for which they already paid extortionate prices to buy or to rent. For the average worker and household, it feels like there is no end to the rising cost of living. This is all while wages remain stagnant.

The lack of a climate act plan is very concerning in relation to progress and for meeting our targets. While some in the Opposition also profess to care about the climate, voting in favour of gutting it in the Dáil and the Seanad undermines progress on climate action. On a national level, there must be a renewed interest from central government to get more capacity in our bus and rail network, to invest in a lower emissions fleet, and to reduce the cost of public transport for commuters. The State must ensure that those living in our towns, cities and villages can be assured that public transport is cheaper and genuinely viable for commuters. The fact that many multinationals in Ireland - I look at Apple on the northside of Cork city - continue to run their own bus services from the cities and towns for their staff speaks to the lack of faith in the State's ability to ramp up public infrastructure routes and capacity. This has to change. I will always acknowledge efforts by the Government to increase services. Services by rail in Cork have improved and there are ambitious plans for the rail network and for the Cork Luas. However, these are long-term projects that must overcome funding hurdles. We need to see the delivery of proposed bus routes linking rural areas and towns, and we need to see a reduction in fares to ensure affordability and encourage more people out of their cars.

This motion is ultimately about supporting the most vulnerable people in this society, who feel there is no end to the cost-of-living crisis they are facing. I am disappointed that the Government has failed to realise that this motion of constructive solutions, created by the Labour Party to give the most vulnerable people in this society an opportunity to deal with the cost of living they are facing, is appropriate for these very people.

Deputy Pa Daly

First, I congratulate the Minister of State on her elevation. It is obvious that she has to take one for the team, given that no Minister or Minister of State from the relevant Department has come in to deal with this. Fair play to her. However, I am disappointed with what has been prepared as the amendment by her colleagues in government.

The Government maintains that it is acutely aware of the pressure faced by people due to high energy costs and mentions the national energy affordability task force. It has been sitting for over a year but we are still going to have to wait until quarter 3 of this year to have the action plan while families and households are suffering. The EV scheme, even though there have been some recent amendments to it, has for the main part been nothing more than a wealth transfer to people who can afford cars that are worth €55,000 or more. The retrofitting scheme has been unaffordable for many people in rural areas. Regarding offshore wind, a Minister of State said on Radio Kerry that the Government had been sitting on its hands and navel-gazing on it. I cannot say I disagree with the wise words from that particular Minister of State. All in all, the Government has been failing on climate action. We have huge potential with the hopeful vision of the 540 GW of renewable energy in offshore wind. We can achieve energy independence but we need State investment.

As the Minister of State knows, we have the highest electricity prices in the EU. Recent reports from the ESRI and Eurostat show we are paying 40% more than the European average - €480 more than the average bill - and have the third highest increase in costs behind Austria and Romania. There are a record number of households. Their debt levels are higher and lasting for longer than ever before. The ESRI called for an independent investigation and for the regulator to release the data for independent analysis, but the Government and the regulator have refused.

One of the key drivers is network costs. The Government has not intervened. It is saying that we must get the balance right, keep our powder dry and there is nothing it can do. It is saying that it is all the fault of the war in Ukraine and the war Iran and that it is too complex and technical to fix. However, that is not the case. We used to have the lowest electricity prices in the EU and now we have the highest. Fine Fáil and Fine Gael have presided over this change. Not only did they do nothing to stop it, but they reinforced the system. They chose not to intervene and the energy giants are posting about enormous profits, profits that have been driven by crisis, war and instability.

There are solutions, though. We believe in transparency and fairness, a just transition, and an energy system that delivers for the public good rather than for corporate profit. We have tabled legislation with commonsense measures to give the energy regulator the teeth it needs to hold energy companies to account, including a prioritisation framework. However, we need immediate action on that. That is why Sinn Féin called for the reintroduction of energy credits. I see that is in the motion that is being proposed by Deputy Ahern. I commend him on bringing his motion to the Dáil to allow space to discuss this. We wanted the electricity credits to give families breathing space while we fixed the deeper structural problems that have left Ireland with some of the highest energy costs in Europe. To reduce prices long term, we need to address the flaws. We wanted to strengthen oversight of energy companies' pricing and hedging strategies, allow the regulator to investigate and sanction anti-competitive behaviour, and increase transparency.

Let us come to the Government's reckless approach to data centres. They consume massive amounts of electricity, drive demand and put strain on the grid. Who is footing the bill only ordinary workers and families paying six, eight or maybe ten times more on network charges than data centres are, and double the unit price? What did Eurostat identify in its report as the leading factor in Ireland's extortionate energy costs? Network charges. We must address one of the glaring injustices in our system, which is the imbalance between what households and large energy users like data centres are paying. Households are effectively subsidising the corporations that are driving up demand on our grid and, therefore, prices to boot. The biggest users are paying the least and households are paying the price for these grid upgrades. Data centres must pay their fair share. We need to restructure the charges and the public service obligation, PSO, levy and prioritise the use of our grid for the public good rather than unfettered data centre expansion. Families are dealing with soaring electricity bills. Data centres now consume 22% of Ireland's electricity, and that is only increasing. A stall needs to be put on them and we are calling on the Government to act to rebalance the system.

Deputy Louis O'Hara

The continued growth of data centres and their growing energy demand is having a significant impact on our electricity grid and the cost of electricity. Data centres are responsible for approximately 20% of Ireland's electricity demand, and the Government's hands-off approach to their expansion is going to increase this share of demand in the coming years. A recent report found that rising electricity demand from data centres is putting upward pressure on electricity costs for households, coming at a time when households are facing rising costs right across the board. According to Eurostat, Ireland has the highest household electricity prices in the European Union and the average household in Ireland is paying around €480 more a year for its electricity when compared to the EU average. It comes then as no surprise that there are over 500,000 households in arrears on their energy bills. In recent weeks, energy companies have once again announced that they are going to be hiking up energy prices further.

Earlier this year, Sinn Féin introduced two Bills that would have empowered the energy regulator to hold energy companies to account. We have consistently brought forward proposals to increase the powers of the energy regulator to ensure oversight of hedging practices, protect against price gouging and profiteering, regulate standing charges, and make the PSO levy and network charges fair. These are the tools needed to protect consumers, yet the Government refuses to support this legislation and these proposals when so many households are being hammered by the cost of energy.

This is not the first time that the Government has sat on its hands and refused to protect households. In last year's budget, it decided to withdraw the energy credits that many households depended on. It knew the effect this would have, especially on the most vulnerable, but it went ahead with it anyway. We saw this cold approach once again when it came to the recent fuel crisis where the Government had the opportunity to support households, but it decided to dither and delay. When it decided to act, it only delivered half-measures. Now, the Government is telling everybody to wait for next year's budget for support. This is at a time when the Government has unprecedented resources. It is no comfort to the 500,000 households in arrears right now. The only commitment that the Government has been able to give is that it will be increasing the carbon tax on home heating oil in October's budget.

Households are struggling now. The Government has the tools available to support them.

The Government must use them to ensure households can afford the essentials needed to live, hold energy companies accountable and deliver supports to those who need them most.

Deputy Réada Cronin

Ba mhaith liom mo bhuíochas a ghabháil leis an Teachta Ahern as an rún Chomhaltaí Príobháideacha seo a chur chun cinn. Over 22% of the electricity we currently use is used by data centres. That is up from 5% in 2015, a rise of 531% over that period, the equivalent of almost 400,000 households. This is set to rise to over 30% by 2030 and 55% if projected growth continues. All the while, our grid is creaking at the seams. Major upgrades are needed immediately and well into the future if we are to build the houses and infrastructure we so desperately need to support our citizens. Speaking at the climate committee in March this year during a session on private wires, ICTU noted a scarce resource of labour, giving us a stark warning that we can either throw our resources at housing, reinforcing the grid and protecting our infrastructure or we throw those resources at data centres. Expanding grid capacity to facilitate data centre expansion is not only costing households more in electricity bills, it is also leapfrogging housing for electric connections. We are at a crossroads. A recent UN report on the environmental cost of AI's energy use cited Ireland specifically as a cautionary tale of energy demand running ahead of infrastructure. AI's growth completely outpaces energy planning. This is particularly concerning my constituency in north Kildare where the Herbata data centre proposed for Naas will create serious difficulties for future housing developments in the area and water quality. The truth is AI completely outpaces energy planning. We have to be concerned about the growth of data centres increasingly being driven by AI and numerous social media bots that spread disinformation and manipulate public debate. At a time when households are struggling with high energy costs and we, as a State, are striving to reduce emissions, serious questions must be asked about why we are dedicating so much energy infrastructure to activities that undermine the people's democracy in a Republic. Expecting the people in my constituency to pay to subsidise it beggars belief. Not only are data centres increasing household bills, they also directly impact the state of our environment. They will continue to contribute to our carbon footprint and our nation's emissions as they expand. Fines could be as much as €28 billion. We need a moratorium on data centres immediately and for the Government to properly tackle energy costs.

Deputy Cathy Bennett

I congratulate the Minister of State on her new post. I alert her that the Government continues to fail the ordinary people struggling to keep the lights on and their homes warm. A new record of more than 500,000 are now in arrears on their gas and electricity bills. The most impactful action by this Government was to pull the plug, withdrawing energy credits that were for many people just keeping their heads above water. There are an additional 200,000 households in arrears since the Government made that cruel choice. Even that does not take into account those who cannot afford to top up their pay-as-you-go meters or reflect those who cannot afford to keep their homes warm with home heating oil because not one cent was reduced. The Government imposes a carbon tax on the people yet at the same time it stands aside and allows our constituents to be hammered on energy costs. It takes a light-touch approach to energy companies especially data centres which now consume 22% of all electricity. Government is not responsible for the root cause of this crisis but it is utterly shameful that its policy choices are responsible for the scale of the impact on ordinary households. The Government needs to act for the people. Action needs to be taken to end the practice of ordinary households subsidising energy bills for big tech companies and for households in need of relief through the restoration of energy costs. I ask Deputy Ardagh as a new Minister of State to stand up to this supposed Government, stand by the consumers and make the big tech companies pay for their electricity.

Deputy Martin Kenny

The electricity grid is out of date. It simply does not work. It is not capable of meeting the growing demand across all sectors in particular data centres which are causing huge problems. Ordinary people and small businesses are under strain to try to pay very high bills. We are told we have the highest in Europe. If you looked at it globally, we are probably among the highest. We need to look at our situation. It goes to the core of the difference between Government and Opposition. Government has continually over the years set out everything essential to private providers. From the point of view of those in opposition, it should be provided by the State. That is the difference. When we had the lowest electricity prices in Europe, the ESB was run by the State. That is the difference. We are told when all these things are done, it will be good for the consumer because competition will bring prices down. When you go back and look at all these situations, two things happen - prices go up and infrastructure crumbles. That is the case in all of these situations. It is no different here. The reality is we do not have the capacity in this Government to provide the kind of infrastructure we need. I recall when the Green Party was in government it said we had the equivalent of a Gulf oil stream off the coast with wind if we could only get it in and there was the notion that we would be the richest country in the world with all the wind power we were going to generate to export everywhere. We have not done anything with regard to putting that infrastructure in place. Government is totally failing in respect of all of this.

Deputy Fionntán Ó Súilleabháin

I visited the new data centre in Clondalkin last month at the invitation of Echelon which is installing two centres outside Arklow. I heard extraordinary and fantastical claims of the benefits in terms of employment and income for Arklow and the wider area. We shall see about that. Even if I was to believe it all, once the plant is operational the benefits to the community of Arklow and south Wicklow in local employment may be minimal. I am sure their electricity will not be any cheaper. On my visit, I stressed that local contractors and local labour from south Wicklow and north Wexford must be a priority in the building of the two centres and that a large community fund should be made available to local community groups. Echelon's two data centres in Arklow are supposed to be the first of such centres to open which must generate renewable energy to run their own systems. It will be exceptional if this happens. Currently, there are 89 centres in Ireland which is straining the national grid. I attended a meeting on this with Professor Hannah Daly in the audiovisual room. She highlighted how they are straining power grids enormously, gobbling up 22% of the grid and that may become just under one third shortly. This can affect home connections to the electricity grid which need to be the number one priority. If the new data centres in Arklow do go ahead, I hope they will be the exception to the other 89, as claimed. Last year, I attended the launch of the long-awaited Arklow wastewater treatment plant which should facilitate desperately needed housing in the Arklow area. I attended the Echelon launch an hour later. The Taoiseach was at both. We cannot ever tolerate data centres taking precedence over young families and new home owners when both are competing for connections to the electricity grid. That would be unconscionable as I am sure the Minister of State would agree.

Deputy Natasha Newsome Drennan

I too would like to wish the Minister of State the best in her new post. A single data centre uses as much energy as the entire city of Kilkenny. In the middle of a housing crisis, this Government has prioritised powering data centres faster than powering new homes across Carlow and Kilkenny. Homes are in urgent need but due to lack of infrastructure they cannot proceed. Nearly one quarter of our entire national grid is consumed by these centres. Ordinary families and workers are subsidising multinational profits. That is simply unfair. We now have nearly 100 data centres across the State. At the same time, the Government is rushing to build wind turbines across rural Ireland but much of that energy is wasted because our national grid is simply not fit for purpose. The community of Ballytobin has a modest, reasonable ask - no more wind farms until the national wind energy development guidelines are updated. It has been 20 years since they were last revised. Building regulations are updated constantly to keep people safe and ensure best practice so why does the safety of rural communities matter less than that of our houses? We have seen what happens when regulations are not kept up to date; the people and the State end up paying the price.

I support this most modest of requests from the community of Ballytobin and I call on the Minister of State to stop stalling and provide updated regulations and guidelines. This climate crisis is not letting up. We are seeing more and more extreme weather across the world. At the start of the year, devastating floods hit County Carlow. Ministers arrived for photo opportunities and grand announcements. A sum of €4 million was pledged to repair damaged roads. Here we are in the middle of June and these funds still have not been released to the councils. It is simply unacceptable that the communities across County Carlow are treated with such a lack of respect.

Deputy Johnny Mythen

I too congratulate the Minister of State on her appointment. I thank the Labour Party for bringing forward the motion. I am a member of the Oireachtas committee on AI. We have listened to many academic and expert contributions concerning data centres, energy and climate change. As stated, 22% of our electricity is consumed by data centres. The country coming anywhere close to this is Singapore. To put this into context as it stands, this is an unprecedented percentage per capita in a developed economy.

The Minister of State must also be aware that EirGrid has already acknowledged it will be a challenging position to keep supply to these data centres until 2028 and will likely stretch beyond that. We in Sinn Féin challenge the Government's postcolonial strategy specifically on industrialisation by invitation. We must have meant governance and tackle the environmental impacts and implications on our own citizens. For example, taxpayers are footing the bill for grid upgrades. Between 2015 and 2023, Irish taxpayers paid €750 million extra for their electricity. We had the second-highest electricity prices in the EU in the second half of 2025. We also have more than 500,000 people in gas and electricity arrears. On 1 July, we will see the price of domestic electricity and gas units increase by 9.5% per unit. At present, domestic units are charged at roughly 36.8 cent per kilowatt while data centres' prices are 19.1 cents per kilowatt.

The Government's amendment refers to its large energy user plan. We ask the Minister of State to revisit this plan as it has the potential to lock in our energy sector, effectively locking private tech solutions, including more fossil fuel gases, into our energy grid. This action threatens our public energy legislation that has been in place since the foundation of the State. There should be no unnecessary trade-offs or cost of doing business if it allows mechanisms of backdoor privatisation on our national energy sector.

Deputy Jennifer Whitmore

I congratulate the Minister of State on her new role and wish her the best in it. I thank the Labour Party for this very important and extensive motion. Any time we get to debate energy, climate action and the cost of living in this Dáil Chamber it is very worthwhile. I have just read through the amendment the Government has tabled. I understand the normal process is that the speechwriters do the speeches but I ask the Minister State to cast a critical eye over it because the amount of spin in the document is incredible. The one thing we need to be with the public is honest when it comes to not only the risks of climate change but also the level of climate action. If the Government gives the impression that all of these actions are happening and all of this momentum and change is happening and it is not actually happening, there is a huge risk from a climate and environmental perspective. This is such an important area because there is also a huge level of risk when it comes to social cohesion. We have seen that in Ireland to a small degree, but when we look at the UK, the US or other countries in Europe, there is a real divide in some societies and climate action is being blamed and utilised as the scapegoat for that divide, and it is not. The reason that divide is happening is because a huge number of people feel they are being left behind and there is a focus on the big players - the big corporates and businesses - and they are the ones benefiting from high energy prices and any of the climate measures. A lot of people are feeling very left behind. When they go to blame someone or point the finger because they cannot afford electricity or food or there is no bus to bring them to work, unfortunately we have elements, very bad actors in some areas, who will point to climate change and say it is the reason, that it is a made-up issue and Government is using it to essentially leave them behind. Climate action is not just about the environment or living more sustainably; there is such an important element of social cohesion that needs to be dealt with. That is why we have all of those discussions about just transition and the importance of that. That language has fallen off the table and I am sort of happy about it to be honest, because most ordinary people have no idea what just transition is. Ultimately, when the Government is doing its policies it needs to make sure people are not being left behind.

If we use, for example, how people are experiencing and being impacted by the proliferation of data centres, in their real lives the way people are being impacted is through pricing. People have seen their electricity prices go up. There are a whole lot of other elements to it as well; I understand that. However, data centres are absolutely increasing prices. The demand placed on our electricity grid on the markets is pushing up prices. We heard this as recently as last week, when Friends of the Environment gave a presentation with a really in-depth analysis that showed that household bills have gone up by €360, primarily in the time between 2022 and 2024. That was purely based on the additional demand put on by data centres.

We also have the costs of keeping our grid updated and robust because, obviously, a number of years ago there were major issues with grid security. We were looking at the potential for blackouts and brownouts. As a result, we had to spend a lot of money bringing in temporary generators. That was primarily because we saw this huge increase in data centres and our grid was not able to cope. The PR6 at the ESB – the €18 billion or €19 billion that has been put into the grid by the ESB – is not to support the grid for future data centre development; it is only to support and keep the grid robust for existing data centre development. Anything additional we put on it is going to cause problems.

Professor Hannah Daly, a professor in sustainable energy at UCC, was in Leinster House last week and she has written a blog post on data centres and the risks. I do not know if the Minister of State has read it, but I would certainly advise her to take a look at it. Particularly in her role, it will be really important that she get independent advice in relation to the impact. Professor Daly states the CRU estimates there is potentially 5.8 GW to come on stream. She goes through all the risks. It is quite stark from both cost and demand perspectives.

The motion states 80% of the energy will have to be from renewable sources, but there is six years before that has to be hit. Even the fact that 20% does not have to be from renewable sources is crazy when we are trying to move away from fossil fuels. If a target is to be in place, it should be 100%. There are data centres currently operating now which are claiming they are essentially 100% renewable because they are buying credits from Germany in relation to biomethane. There are all of these loops built into this system which will cause us problems down the road. There will be difficulties with it.

In 2021, the Social Democrats asked for a moratorium on data centres. We called for one because we said it is really important to get our facts right on this. We need to know how many we can have and at what cost. How many can we afford from price, energy demand and climate perspectives? I so wish the previous Government had taken the opportunity to pause back in 2021. If it had done so, we would be in a much better position now. If a tree was not planted 20 years ago, the next best time to plant it is now. I ask the Minister of State to take a really close look at this now and do the analysis. This is a risk we cannot afford to take.

Deputy Sinéad Gibney

I congratulate the Minister of State. We need to cut through the AI hype. I talk a lot about artificial intelligence in this Chamber and at committee meetings. It is often about the policy of its use, its governance and so on, but it is absolutely vital that we also look at the infrastructure that props up this technology.

Time and again, the conversations around regulation, energy and infrastructure are muddied by a lack of understanding of what AI is and the attempts of AI companies to associate energy-guzzling generative AI, which by and large has little social benefit, with positive AI technology such as weather prediction. This is a clear effort to cause confusion and to imply that all data centres are there for positive advancements when we know that the vast majority of these centres have nothing to do with science or social uses but are there for private companies generating slop and profit on the Internet. That is why these "gotcha" arguments of, "Well don't you use email? Don't you use websites?" do not wash because email and web hosting processing demands pale in comparison to the behemoth of generative AI data centres. It was put best by Professor Hannah Daly at the Oireachtas Committee on Artificial Intelligence last week when she said that the question is whether unregulated growth of that industry follows logically from the fact we need it and that the rapid and unmitigated growth of data centres has made the United Nations brand Ireland a cautionary tale.

How is it actually benefiting the average citizen? I do not see a return on investment on this permissive strategy - not in the form of a just transition, not in the form of communities benefiting and not in terms of jobs. The recent KPMG report commissioned by the Department of Enterprise, Tourism and Employment exposed this when, in trying to get creative with the numbers, it went too far. The dogs on the street know that 870,000 is not a credible figure of jobs attributable to data centres despite what that report tried to claim. In doing so, it highlighted the problem we face when it comes to the regulation of big tech for the common good, which is that these decisions are led totally by the Department of Enterprise, Tourism and Employment and that our policy on whether tech practices or tech infrastructure are good for society lacks any consideration or nuance beyond "what the industry wants, we must provide". That is not an industrial policy. That is the result of a complete lack of backbone or consideration of what the needs of our industry, communities, infrastructure and economy actually are.

We are facing a situation where our energy use is increasing at a time when it should be decreasing. That cautionary tale told about Ireland is one where we are failing to displace fossil fuels as a source of energy because all of our new renewable energy is being eaten up by an ever-hungrier network of data centres. If we do not drastically change course, it will cost us and our children their future. We need a moratorium on data centre expansion. We cannot continue to expand our energy use and think there will be no consequences. We do not have a planet B.

Deputy Ruth Coppinger

If ever there was a Government policy that was just so reckless and servile, it is this policy of welcoming and allowing data centres at the cost of our environment but also now at the cost of the pockets of ordinary working-class people. For the second month in a row, Ireland has the highest electricity prices in Europe. They are 52% higher than the European average. The average household in the country is paying around €400 a year more for its electricity compared with the EU average and, incredibly, it pays twice as much per unit of electricity compared with some of the big data centres and the big companies.

Plans for data centre expansion would see data centres use the same amount of power as every other electricity user in the country combined. They are already using up 22% of all electricity in the country, which is the highest figure in the world. Ireland is now the warning - the bogey man for other countries - in international publications of what not to do. We hear that €400 more a year is being paid for electricity. A total of €360 of that, on average, is estimated to be down to high data centre energy demand. Lower-income households - ordinary working-class people and single parents - are the victims of this because they pay more for energy than other people do. Ireland in particular has been singled out by the UN.

I previously raised the Minister for Climate, Energy and Environment's complete fixation on AI. Apart from the social issues of AI making people less critical and more stupid and causing problems academically, the impact on the environment is massive and it is not worth it. Any attempt to use renewables now is eaten up by the corollary of data centre usage. Ireland will significantly go past its greenhouse gas emission targets. We now have to say that we must stop any more data centres being established but there should also be a levy. These data centres need to be taxed to the hilt to pay for the damage they are doing.

Deputy Paul Murphy

Momentum is growing against data centres and the Government's slavish adherence to the policy on demands of big tech because more and more people are seeing the reality of the threats data centres pose to our environment, our energy supply and the cost of living. In our alternative budget last year, People Before Profit proposed a €1 billion energy levy on data centres to fund a €500 universal electricity credit. The effect would be to charge data centres roughly the same amount for electricity as households pay. At the moment, they pay half as much per unit as households do.

On top of that, data centres are driving up electricity prices for everybody by pushing the system into peak rates more often through their constant insatiable demand for energy. Data centres are the main reason that standing charges are being increased to fund investment in the grid, which they have completely maxed out in the greater Dublin area. The consequence is that housing developments are being stalled because they cannot connect to the grid, Dublin Bus has not been able to charge new electric buses for up to three years and vital public transport projects like DART+, MetroLink and Luas are being delayed as a consequence. The ESB has warned that MetroLink construction and further electrification of Dublin Bus will have to rely on "timed electricity connections" to avoid winter peak loads. A briefing note prepared for the Government's major project governance oversight group in April 2025 warned that there was insufficient power in the ESB network to support DART+. Then we hear that funding for DART+ South West and Luas Finglas has been delayed until 2030. It does not take a genius to figure out why. There is no point in building the system if we cannot power it because data centres are using up all of the electricity. It is embarrassing enough for the Government not to be able to charge a few hundred buses but entire train and Luas lines would expose the Government's incompetence completely.

At a meeting last week of the Oireachtas Committee on Artificial Intelligence, we heard that we have no chance of achieving our emissions target because of Government policy to allow unfettered expansion of data centres as long as they build their own power plants. This means privatising our electricity supply, enabling big tech to use fossil fuels indefinitely to power them and smashing through our climate targets. Despite the Government's bluster and despite the nonsense about almost 900,000 jobs, listening to the industry itself, it is clear that it employs about 1,800 people in this country. A giant empty box is coming for your job and the Government calls it progress.

Deputy Roderic O'Gorman

I thank the Labour Party for bringing forward this important and timely motion. Global digital transformation and accelerated AI technology adoption are driving a rapid expansion of data centres in Ireland. While data centres are one part of the infrastructure for business operations, they pose significant social and environmental concerns. Ireland's current power grid cannot support the energy demands that data centres require. We know that they use up a tremendous amount of energy, currently at 22% of Ireland's electricity. Our current available renewable capacity cannot meet this demand, which is only going to result in higher prices for consumers. It is described as the data centre effect. The average household paid €360 extra in additional energy costs between 2015 and 2023 due to the pressure that data centres are exerting on the grid. It is estimated that consumers could pay up to €644 extra between 2025 and 2034 if data centres continue to expand at this rate.

The current solution to reduce grid strain is to use dispatchable generation or back-up generators. These generators are often gas-powered, release emissions and, therefore, undermine our climate goals. It is most likely that there will be even more reliance on these generators in the future as data centre infrastructure continues to outpace renewable infrastructure. In 2022, my colleague Eamon Ryan introduced the Government's statement on the role of data centres and the result of this was that there were no new data centre connections to the grid after that intervention. Yet now, through the large energy user action plan, the Government is actively trying to source more AI data centres in our country. On 2 June, just a few weeks ago, a 600 acre data centre was granted planning permission by Westmeath County Council. That data centre is expected to rely primarily on gas-powered solid oxide fuel cells and solar power.

The data centre, and this is from its own application, is expected to omit 493,0000 tonnes of CO2 per annum, again actively undermining our climate goals. As well as the energy concerns, there is also deep concern about the amount of water used. Right now, it is about 1.3% of Uisce Éireann's annual water but that is only set to grow.

Deputy Seamus Healy

I welcome and support this motion and fully support the points made previously by my Independent and Parties Technical Group colleagues. I want to take the opportunity to highlight a number of retrofit and insulation issues affecting middle and low income families across the country. The warmer homes scheme available to families in receipt of fuel allowance is an excellent scheme in itself but it is underfunded and under-resourced. This results in a huge backlog of applications, with it to increase due to more families qualifying for key social welfare payments which underpin the scheme. Currently, it takes two years to complete a retrofit under the scheme. It takes two visits and 14 months to do the survey and it takes a further ten to 12 months to have the works commenced and completed. That timescale is obviously unacceptable and the scheme needs to be resourced and funded to ensure retrofitting is completed in at least 12 months.

In regard to the retrofitting of local authority council houses, the National Oversight and Audit Commission has confirmed the target to retrofit 36,500 social housing units to B2 standard by 2030 will not be met, and not by a long shot. The target is low anyway and lacks ambition but the report states that even this low target is compromised by insufficient financial resources and by the operation of the scheme on an annual rather than multi-annual basis.

The third issue is the lack of access by middle income families to various energy efficiency schemes. Representatives from the SEAI recently told the Oireachtas climate committee that cash upfront is a serious issue for middle income families, who have neither excess cash nor access to cash to avail of these schemes. After Government grants, a retrofit can cost up to €43,000 per house. This is leading to a green divide, where homes in affluent areas have access to the schemes as they have moneys and funds available for these upfront costs. I urge the Minister to take these issues on board and to act on them urgently as they are affecting families right across the country.

Deputy Michael Collins

There is one point in this motion that nobody in this House can dispute. Irish families and small businesses are being crippled by electricity costs and if anyone doubts the scale of that crisis, they only need to look at the figures. At the end of last year, nearly 320,000 households in this country were behind on their electricity bills. That is roughly one in seven homes struggling to keep up. The average amount owed is around €466 per household. That has gone to over €500 now and is rising. That is the reality facing people - not theory and not projections. What happened? At the same time the Government removed electricity credits from the most recent budget, credits that had already been scaled back year after year.

People will remember that in budget 2023, households received €600 in electricity credits. That dropped to €450 the following year and then to €250 in budget 2025, paid in two instalments. This year, there was nothing. At the very moment when families are under the most pressure, support has been taken away. It is no surprise arrears have surged. Our energy system is under serious pressure. Our grid is stretched. Our reliance on gas remains far too high and the delivery of offshore wind and renewables has been far too slow.

That is not the fault of ordinary people. That is a failure of Government planning and delivery over many years. We hear a lot in this House about climate being blamed for flooding, and yes weather patterns are changing and we accept that. However, before we blame everything on climate, we need to look at what is happening on the ground. We have walked away from the basics. The ditches are blocked, the drains are choked and the rivers and waterways are all not being maintained any more. Years ago, this work was done as a matter of routine and it made a difference. Now people are tied up in red tape. They are afraid to clean a ditch or clear a drain and the result is simple; water has nowhere to go. When water has nowhere to go, it floods homes, farms and roadways. Yes, we can talk about climate but let us talk about common sense. Start by clearing the ditches, maintaining the channels and doing the basic work we know prevents flooding because until we do that, we are only dealing with half the problem.

Independent Ireland would be slow to support a blanket moratorium on data centres. That approach risks jobs, undermines investment and sends out a damaging signal that Ireland is closed for business. Data centres are part of the modern economy. They bring employment, tax revenue and opportunity, particularly to regional Ireland. The problem is not growth; the problem is that the infrastructure has not kept pace. Nowhere is that clearer than in our approach to EVs. We are telling people they must transition. We are setting targets and deadlines but the reality on the ground is that the system is simply not ready. The public EV charging infrastructure in this country is not fit for purpose; it is far from it. It is too complicated. There are too many providers, too many apps and too many accounts. People are expected to download app after app just to charge their car. When they finally arrive at a charging point, it is out of service, blocked or so slow it is practically useless. That is happening every day across the country. Then we ask why people are reluctant to make the switch. If you want people to move to electric vehicles, the system must work and it must be simple. Anyone should be able to pull up, plug in, tap their debit or credit card and charge their car. It should be as simple as buying fuel with no apps, no confusion and no barrier. As a matter of fact, the only place I have been told about in Ireland - there probably are more but people have checked it out fairly well - is in Schull in Jeremy Brosnan's Centra. You drive up, plug in the car, tap your debit card and the car gets charged. It is simple and all people want. They do not want complications. We are nowhere near that standard around the rest of Ireland.

There is also a rural reality here that cannot be ignored. In many parts of rural Ireland, there are simply not enough charging points, if any at all. People are being asked to change but without the infrastructure to support them. That is not a fair ask. A lot of people, particularly older people or those not comfortable with technology, are completely turned off by the system as it stands. It is a major barrier to progress.

The same disconnect applies when we talk about solar energy. Families are being told and encouraged to install solar panel and want to do so but the numbers simply do not stack up. For a typical household to install a system that would truly meet all their needs, powering their home and perhaps an electric car, they are looking at a cost of €20,000. What is the grant? It is €1,800. It is probably the lowest in Europe, the UK and Scotland. That is not an incentive. It is nowhere near enough. It does not bridge the gap for ordinary families.

Again, the issue is not willingness. The issue is that supports do not match reality. If we had invested properly in grid infrastructure, in renewables and in practical supports, we would not be in this position today. Instead of shutting down investment through moratoriums, we should be building capacity. We also have serious concerns about the proposals for new levies on data centres. We know how this works. Costs introduced in one part of the system often end up being passed on elsewhere.

Deputy Paul Lawless

Rural Ireland is bearing the brunt of the country's energy policy and getting very little in return. In Mayo and right across the west of Ireland, planning applications for huge wind turbines are landing at massive rates. These structures are not small. Indeed, they are bigger than the Dublin Spire, Big Ben and the Statue of Liberty. Community consultation is simply inadequate. In some cases, it is not being done properly at all and it is restrictive in terms of who can access or engage with developers. These are the communities who are responsible. These are the communities who will live with these turbines for decades to come. The truth is that the Government has resisted Aontú's calls for planning guidelines. The guidelines are 20 years out of date. The Minister knows this.

Turbines are being situated dangerously close to families and their homes and it is unacceptable. It is unacceptable at a time when applications are coming at such a significant rate. Right across Mayo, planning applications are being submitted. Meanwhile, the Minister is sitting on the guidelines that are 20 years out of date. It is unacceptable. We have called for updated guidelines and, indeed, many other parties have called for them. It is only fair. The Minister should provide updated guidelines for families in relation to wind turbines.

Meanwhile, households right across Ireland are paying the highest electricity costs in Europe. More than 500,000 energy bills are now in arrears and data centres are the primary driver of this. They are causing an inflationary aspect to household bills.

The bigger issue in relation to all of this is that the EPA has told us in black and white that even if all of the planned measures are delivered, Ireland will achieve a reduction of 23% of greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 and not the target of 51%. The target is out of reach and has been for a number of years. Under the EU's effort-sharing regulation, that gap comes with significant fines. I have raised a number of times on the floor of the Dáil that these are fines the Minister simply ignores. The Irish Fiscal Advisory Council and the Climate Change Advisory Council have outlined that we are going to face fines of somewhere in the region of €6 billion to €26 billion. This has been confirmed the Comptroller and Auditor General. The Minister can smile but I have asked him what his plan is and he has no plan to address this and no plan to provide protection for rural communities. It is simply unacceptable.

Deputy Paul Nicholas Gogarty

In its countermotion the Government mentions that it is close to meeting the first carbon budget, according to EPA projections. There are several issues raised, including that any emissions that exceed this budget have to be deducted from the second budget. There is also the fact that, as others have mentioned, the five-year budget will not be anywhere near being reached. It will be exceeded in all major sectors, tracking well above the legal limits by 2030 targets. It will be at just half of the required 51% national reduction target going past 2030. This is absolutely inadequate. We are the laggards of Europe.

We are trying to push data centres. We will have huge revenue potential down the line from data centres. We are an ideal location but only if we have surplus capacity. As I have said in multiple debates, we are not investing in getting the offshore wind we already have up and running, we are not investing in tidal energy, and we are not investing in solar energy or wave technology as countries such as Denmark are. We could be leaders. We could have the deep-sea ports preplanned. We could be exporting twice our own requirements and have all of this extra spare capacity, through converted hydrogen and battery storage, to operate the data centres and make good revenue to pay for a good social system and a good education system in this country. We have to put the medium-term investment in now. We have to put our surplus into a short-term, what I would call wartime, effort. We have to ramp up massively over the next ten years. It will cost us money and we may even have to borrow money but the returns would be infinitesimal and we have to do it. Otherwise we will not meet our climate change targets and we will put our people in jeopardy.

Deputy Barry Heneghan

I want to be clear from the outset that I agree with the sentiment of what the Labour Party is trying to do and I believe the frustration is real. The Minister is well aware that energy is one of my key priorities. Irish families pay too much and it is very clear that data centres are consuming an ever-increasing share of our electricity. These are facts and they do deserve to be addressed. However, I will not support the motion and there are several reasons for this. The moratorium on data centres would cost Irish jobs and the development of our country. These are real jobs, real wages and real families in my area. We cannot simultaneously say we care about the cost of living but then vote to put people's jobs at risk.

Deputies in favour of the motion really need to tell their constituents that they are against section 7 of the Critical Infrastructure Bill. What would happen to the hospital in their ward, the housing development that needs a wastewater connection and the water treatment plant that every home and growing town needs? Without section 7, every one of these will be exposed to legal challenges, which we are all aware have cost the State billions. The existing legislation is consistent with the climate energy pact because the EU climate law still applies in full and the environmental impact assessment directive still applies. What section 7 does is remove the legal uncertainty. Removing section 7 will not help the climate but it will help lawyers, which I know some Deputies may have been in a previous life.

The problem is not that data centres are here but that they are running on the wrong energy. Today I will introduce a Bill that is trying to fix this, and I welcome the Minister's engagement on it. It would give data centres, SMEs and community energy the ability to use renewable energy more easily. I will welcome the development and progression of the Bill. While we are talking about the cost of living, thousands of apartment dwellers are waiting for solar plug-in to be legalised. I know there is an ISO standard that needs to be removed. Will the Minister do a pilot scheme for new-build social and affordable housing, whereby solar plug-in can be installed by Dublin City Council and Fingal County Council, in conjunction with an inverter and battery, and save people money immediately?

Deputy Michael Healy-Rae

This motion is mad. It states that Dáil Éireann recognises that the Government will further increase carbon emissions by lifting the Dublin Airport cap, promoting unsustainable housing and economic development and by no longer prioritising public transport and active travel investment over road construction. The message must go out loud and clear from here today that the Labour Party is against tourism and economic development, it is against house building and it is against the construction of roads. This is a very clear message by the Labour Party here in the motion.

Targets underpinned by the climate action Bill, which 129 TDs across all parties voted for, are wholly unachievable and always were. The people paying the price for unachievable targets are not politicians in Dublin but farmers, families with two cars who are working hard, small business owners and rural communities who have no alternatives. The Government is removing the cap for Dublin Airport. What will this do? It will help us an awful lot. It will bring more people into the country. It will bring economic development here. When I see the Minister prioritising road safety, saving lives by spending money on roads and infrastructure, I welcome it. I see the Government targeting housing and then a motion like this comes along trying to undermine this type of work. That is why I say the motion is mad and makes no sense. Again, let the message go out clearly that the Labour Party is against tourism and economic development, it is against house building and it is against the construction of roads. This makes absolutely no sense to me or to the people from Kerry whom I represent, whom I want to continue to fight for, argue for and be there to support. What the Labour Party is trying to do in undermining the work that is being carried out is absolutely crazy and insane and I do not agree with it. I certainly will not support it in any shape or fashion whatsoever.

Deputy Duncan Smith

I just want to say that the Member did not speak to our motion.

Deputy Mattie McGrath

I am glad to be able to speak on the motion today. I know the Minister is walking a tightrope and it is very difficult to get the proper balance. We have been waiting for the wind energy guidelines for 21 years. Fine Gael promised two elections ago that we would have them in 12 months. Councils are at a loss. It is the same with the solar situation. The best of land in the country is being taken over by solar. With regard to data centres, the United Nations, which I do not often pay a lot of attention to, is even issuing a cautionary tale about us in Ireland for allowing data centre growth to run far ahead of our energy and water capacity. When the UN is warning us, something must be amiss. We need to cut our cloth according to our measure.

I am not opposed per se to data centres or any other development. However, I am against what is going on with the huge amount of electricity they use and the great need they have for water to cool their systems and everything else. The proposed Shannon pipeline is like a runaway train. It will be a second children's hospital. It is to bring water to Dublin when there are plenty of aquifers and water in the vicinity of Dublin without having this mad project. I call it madness. It will do huge ecological damage to the mid-west. Uisce Éireann has gone off without planning and without any licence from the EPA or anybody else and has spent a fortune compensating farmers and paying them 25% upfront. Does Uisce Éireann have some inner contact line whereby it gets the nod to go ahead and do this and to hell with planning, An Coimisiún Pleanála and anything else and it can do this and start spending money? It is out of control completely.

As I said with regard to data centres, people are trying to heat their homes, the cost of living is going up and data centres are having an inordinate impact. Most of them are in the capital city, which is bursting at the seams. We need more balanced regional development. Several speakers referred during the motion to the home support scheme for ordinary families to try to make savings on their energy and do something for the climate and have retrofits in a timely fashion so they can avail of them.

No families have €45,000 in their back pockets that they can dish out to pay for these retrofits, so there is a lot to do. I know it is a hard balancing act, and the Minister is doing his best, but we have to get a better balance and listen when people like the United Nations tell us that capacity here is all wrong and we have too many eggs in one basket. We must try to redress that and have more balanced regional development as well.

Deputy Danny Healy-Rae

I am glad to get the opportunity to talk on this topic, even though I have only a couple of minutes. I could talk for a whole day about it. I do not agree with many people here. The climate is changing but the climate has always changed. It is not man-made. We are not causing it here on this Earth. The climate changed back over the centuries, and those are the facts. History will show that to us at different times. We had periods of severe cold and severe rain. A famine in the 1740s was caused by two years of incessant rain, when one third of our population and most of our cattle and sheep died. If we all walked off the island of Ireland today, it would only mean a difference of 0.13% of 1% in the whole worldwide context. That is another fact. With all these ideas that the Government has about the climate, I honestly say that no human being here can have any effect in changing the climate and never will.

We have the highest ESB charges now simply because we are told we cannot buy turf or burn fossil fuels, yet Germany has opened two new coalmines. It is in Europe as well. I wonder what the Minister will say about that.

In 2019, there was a vote here on the targets for 2030. I believe I was the only TD who voted against those targets at that time because I knew then, as I know now, what it would mean to hard-working people. It would put pressure on them financially. This is what the Government is trying to do now in every sector because of climate change. Massive amounts of taxpayers' money are being spent to address this issue, but it will fail because it is not possible to change the weather. No matter what we do here, we do not have the power to change the weather. We cannot do lesser things or things closer to home or to the needs of the people. We cannot achieve those things.

I will just mention one thing. We do not have enough houses for the number of people coming into the country and the way our population is exploding. Then there is this carbon tax. People are being charged massive amounts of carbon tax. Farmers should be completely exempt because they are sequestering more carbon than they are emitting. Growing grass sequesters carbon. They are planting hedges and trees, and they are sequestering more carbon.

An Cathaoirleach Gníomhach (Deputy Darren O'Rourke)

Go raibh maith agat. I thank an Teachta.

Deputy Danny Healy-Rae

They are still being charged carbon tax. They are using AdBlue. They are doing everything possible and yet the Government is charging them carbon tax.

Minister for Climate, Energy and the Environment (Deputy Darragh O'Brien)

I thank the Labour Party for tabling this motion, and I will deal with elements of it in my response.

I have been struck by many of the responses, many of which have been constructive and well-meaning. Others have not been. Turning specifically to Deputy Danny Healy-Rae, climate change is real and is happening now. The science is indisputable and climate action is critically important to counter climate change. Climate action is also important because it affords us great opportunities here. There are great opportunities in the context of climate action in relation to new technologies for the electrification of our country, which will make us more competitive and reduce our dependence on fossil fuels. Even if one were to argue, therefore, which I never would, that fossil fuels do not impact the climate, which they do, Ireland is still too dependent on imports of fossil fuels. To state the very obvious, we are an island nation. We have low interconnection rates. We import 80% of our gas from our nearest neighbour. We produce the other 20%. What do we need to do? We need to accelerate the deployment of renewables. I will return to this aspect later in my remarks.

We have tabled a countermotion. I do not do that lightly, but there are elements in the Labour Party motion that I profoundly disagree with. It is interesting that things like the airport cap were thrown into this debate. As someone who represents an airport constituency, I remember a time when the Labour Party was a supporter of airport workers. Even in advance of the debate on the Dublin Airport (passenger capacity) Bill 2026, it is clear that this is not a side that the Labour Party is taking any more, which is regrettable. If I take the example of the airport, and I will move on to data centres and ICT in a moment, 130,000 direct and indirect jobs derive very good incomes from Dublin Airport alone. We are growing Shannon, Cork and Ireland West airports as well, so it is not just one instead of the other. I do not think anyone can argue that an 18-year-old planning condition is appropriate and serves Ireland well right now. I agree with much of what Deputy Michael Healy-Rae said in that regard. I ask people to reflect on this issue. It does not set aside environmental considerations either. That is purely incorrect in the motion. I ask people to look at the legislation. An Coimisiún Pleanála will be the organisation that evaluates the environmental assessments and not me as the Minister. This change needs to happen if we are serious about growth in jobs and protecting our connectivity and competitiveness. This needs to happen, and I would warn against a move towards populism in that regard.

On energy pricing, I was at the Energy Ireland conference earlier, so the Minister of State, Deputy Ardagh, took the first half of the debate but I listened to it on the way back. Many Deputies threw out this figure of there being 500,000 households in energy arrears. That is not correct. What was reported on RTÉ was not correct, and it took it quite a while to even correct it. The Commission for Regulation of Utilities actually called that out. Arrears are too high and energy prices are too high, and we need to get them down. I do not dispute that at all. All that has been done to get that 500,000 figure, though, is adding the figures for gas arrears to those for electricity arrears. Unfortunately, many households are across both, so saying 500,000 households are in arrears is just not true, and the record should be corrected on this. It should have been corrected on our national broadcaster but it was not because it did not suit its narrative. Everyone in arrears is counted from the first day, from day one when a bill is not paid. When we look at the figures for those who have been 90 days in arrears, and we do need to help people to get out of that situation, we are looking at about 8% of electricity customers, which amounts to 184,000 households. It is still too high, absolutely, but let us deal with the facts and not go down that route of effectively looking at the bigger figure because it will get more prominence.

It is good that we are having a discussion, particularly on data centres and ICT. It is a pity Deputies Paul Murphy and Coppinger are not here. They are always giving very constructive remarks here in the Chamber. They opposed the climate Act, by the way, which has been able to ensure that Ireland is moving towards meeting those climate obligations that we have.

On data centres, Ireland is not a large industrial nation. We do not make cars or military equipment and do not have large industrial companies. We do, however, have a substantial ICT sector employing just short of 200,000 people. It is around 185,000 people. The figure is 19,000 people in the data centres, but they support all those other jobs at the leading edge of technology. Many of our young people are the best in the world at this. We need an infrastructure that supports that, and data centres are part of that. When people say 22% of our energy is used by data centres, that is correct. If we went to Germany, however, we could ask how much energy there is used for large industrial developments, including car manufacturing and all those various things.

Deputy Ciarán Ahern

How many jobs are attached to it?

Deputy Darragh O'Brien

That is why we brought forward the large energy user action plan and the decision of CRU in relation to large energy users. It is a plan-led approach going forward. Any new data centre connections will have to be on the basis of using 80% renewables - new renewables, not existing renewables. This idea that existing renewables will be used up is not correct. We need that plan-led approach. I support the ICT sector, new jobs and new technologies. It is good for us as a country and a small, open economy. We cannot be complacent about that. The idea that we would pull the shutters down again on this area is not correct, but it has to be done in a planned way. I agree with many contributors from the Opposition who have said this. The question now is how we can continue to protect families and businesses in the short term.

Retrofitting is critical. Many people, including Deputy Healy, were talking about middle-income families being able to access grants. That is why I have specifically brought forward the retrofitting passport for households and broken down the grants such that we are not just doing deep retrofits but are allowing for the inclusion of windows and doors, attic insulation, wall cavity insulation and all those different things, including solar at scale as well. If we go back to when we started retrofitting, about 268,000 homes across the country have now been retrofitted to different degrees.

That protects them to a large degree against future price shocks, reduces their energy usage, reduces their emissions and makes them warmer and more efficient. We need to accelerate that. In the first quarter of this year, 12,000 homes were upgraded under the scheme, including 1,500 under the warmer homes scheme for those at risk of energy poverty. Since the formation of this Government, 70,000 homes have been retrofitted.

The purpose of the change in the grants is to ensure that households can access them. We have seen an absolutely incredible response, with over 50,000 applications in the first four months of this year, including significant applications for solar. We want to do more with regard to batteries. That is the position on households.

Five thousand businesses have been retrofitted. Of course, we can do more, but we are targeting 73,000 households to be retrofitted this year. It will be the largest number done in any given year. We are actually building up a really good domestic sector and domestic expertise, with new Irish companies, particularly in our rural areas. This really speaks to regional development.

What are we doing at a national level regarding our grid and energy? We have now reached a really significant figure of 8 GW of renewable energy integrated into our system. Yes, of course we need to do more. One gigawatt powers about 500,000 homes. That is what we are talking about. Our wind capacity has doubled in ten years. We have added 5 GW of renewables in just a ten-year period. The figure for solar will probably be 3 GW by the end of this year alone, with over 1 GW from rooftop solar. We want to continue to support households in this regard.

I am considering measures with regard to domestic batteries. I have asked the ESB to examine the whole area of balcony or plug-in solar, as it is called. These are things that are critically needed.

What is also critically needed is investment in our grid. For argument's sake, I will use the example of a capital project that should have been completed already and that needs to be completed without delay, namely, the North-South interconnector. There have been four reviews of the interconnector, including in respect of whether it should be underground or overground. The reviews are done now. There are no more and it needs to happen. Three local authorities need to discharge the planning consents and we need to get building it. I returned from a conference this morning with my colleague in the North, Caoimhe Archibald. The Executive in the North is in absolute agreement on this as well. This one piece of infrastructure will do more for the resilience of our electricity grid than any other project, and that needs to start. I expect cross-party support, from both the Government and Opposition, to commence work on this and to deliver the project by 2031, which is still exacting. That will deliver affordability.

On offshore wind, the target was 5 GW by 2030, as Deputy Gogarty mentioned. There have been planning consent delays all the way through. We hope to have positive planning decisions on two projects this year. My target is to get them to construction this year. That would be a game-changer for us. I absolutely agree in this regard. In the meantime, we need more onshore wind and more onshore solar.

To answer the questions some Deputies have raised about the wind energy guidelines, the revised guidelines will be published and made available this year. I get the point in that regard. The revised guidelines will be produced this year through the work I am doing with the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage, Deputy Browne.

I thank Labour Party colleagues for the motion. This has been a decent debate. I will not be accepting the motion but I look forward to continuing to work with the Deputies on a constructive basis.

Deputy George Lawlor

Listening to the Minister's comments about the arrears issue, I noted he turned it into a maths equation. I cannot believe how disconnected he is from the reality on the ground. If he needs another reminder, we had fuel protests some time ago. The entire nation was convulsed. Even the former Minister of State Deputy Michael Healy-Rae was so convulsed by it that he stood up and said he had no confidence in the leadership of the Government. He went out and held his fist up in support of the protesters. This morning, of course, he is back in love with the Government as he tries to get himself back into some sort of ministerial role.

I am very glad to support the Labour Party motion, my party's motion, because it speaks the truth that can no longer be ignored. Of course, data centres have a crucial role to play in much of the economic development of this country, but there is no use having them if, in a few years' time, people will go home from working in companies that have benefited from them and there is no electricity to turn their lights on. This has happened in other parts of the world. We should learn from the experience of other areas.

The evidence on the climate is stark. Last month, temperatures in Ireland in May exceeded 30°C. If that is not an indication of climate change, what is? I do not know what weather they have in Kerry, but Deputy Danny Healy-Rae seems to have no confidence whatsoever that climate change is taking place. He should say that to those in places like Enniscorthy and other parts of the country that are decimated almost year in, year out as a result of it.

A recent UN report described Ireland as a cautionary tale for the environmental impact of data centres. That should alarm every single Member of this House. We now have over 22% of our electricity consumed by data centres, and this is projected to rise to 30% by 2030, and potentially to an unbelievable 55% if growth continues unchecked. That would mean data centres would be using more electricity than every home, farm, small business, hospital and school in the country combined.

The Minister spoke about retrofitting. Retrofitting would be a most welcome addition to every home in the country. However, when you ask people to come up with €30,000, €40,000 or €50,000 in matching funding, you might as well be asking them for €1 million. They just do not have it. It is too expensive for ordinary decent working people to invest in. They do not have the money. One of the things I have proposed in the past is a fair deal-type scheme for retrofitting, whereby the Government would invest to ensure the people have access. There is no use having a great scheme if people cannot access it. There is a great scheme, but you have to have tens of thousands of euro in addition to the grant.

The Government's own policies are making the situation worse. The CRU's large energy user connection policy, the private wires legislation and the proposed LNG terminal all point in the same direction: more fossil fuels. The Climate Change Advisory Council has already warned that all new renewable energy is being swallowed up by new data centre demand. Where there are vast solar farms, and there is one in Gusserane in Wexford, people have no real problem; however, they do have a problem in a very rural area where 100 battery energy storage system, BESS, batteries are being installed, each the size of a container. We have to look into this again.

Deputy Marie Sherlock

I thank my colleague Deputy Ahern for introducing this really important and timely motion. It is frankly shambolic that, more than six months into 2026, we still have yet to see a national climate action plan. That speaks volumes about this Government and its commitment to climate mitigation in this country. Instead of a Government prioritising clean, cheap energy for the many, we have had to introduce this motion because of the huge drain that data centres represent to our grid at this point, with real-world consequences for so many households across the country. It is absolutely shambolic that the vast majority of the renewable resources being developed are going towards data centres as opposed to reducing bills and making a meaningful impact on the utility bills of households across the country.

Some of us here accept that there is a role in many economies for data centres. However, when one notes that data centres account for 22% of our energy, and when the Minister for enterprise, Deputy Burke, talks about data centre activity being a strategic opportunity for the Irish economy to bring forward the green transition, nothing could be further from the truth. The reality is that data centres are sucking up the renewable energy generated in the Irish economy, which needs to be going to real households. We need to see a significant change in the approach of the Government. It has become the cornerstone of industrial policy. We need to see that changed for the households I deal with in Dublin Central and the 14% of low-income households that are in dire circumstances. A woman who came to me yesterday had a bill of €1,200 in the middle of May. There are thousands of others like her across the country. I hear the Minister dancing on the head of a pin about 500,000 household energy accounts that are in long-term arrears. That is what we are talking about. For the Minister to get defensive about the level of arrears in this country is simply wrong. He needs to engage regarding the level of need that exists.

We believe there needs to be a complete change with regard to how we retrofit households across this country. At the moment, those who are able to access the grants have means. The many who do not have those means week in, week out, and who are living from week to week, cannot access the grants. We need to change the whole framework of grants to ensure those in both social and private housing can collectively receive support from the SEAI to make meaningful changes to retrofit their homes and permanently lower their costs.

We feel that the Minister has his head in the clouds with regard to the true level of the issue out there in terms of the energy bills and arrears that households are dealing with. We want to see a real change in how the Government deals with the level of need out there.

Deputy Ciarán Ahern

"The Minister has his head in the cloud computing" is what my colleague might have wanted to say. I thank him for gracing us with his presence for the second half of this debate. It was disappointing that neither he nor the two Ministers of State from the Department were able to turn up for the first half. If nothing else, I am pleased that we have helped to reunite the Healy-Rae brothers over their joint passion for climate denial. It was lovely to see that collectivity back in the House. Do not say the Labour Party never did anything for you, lads.

Deputy Danny Healy-Rae

You will not change the weather. It would be too late for that.

Deputy Ciarán Ahern

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.

Amendment put.

An Ceann Comhairle

The division is deferred until the weekly division time.

Dáil Éireann debate - Wednesday, 17 Jun 2026

Data Centres, Energy Use and Climate Change: Motion [Private Members]

Dáil Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 17 Jun 2026