THE GOVERNMENT HAS refused to back a Labour Party motion calling for a levy on data centres to recover the high energy costs they are adding to household electricity bills. 

The motion was tabled in the Dáil this morning by Labour’s climate spokesperson Ciarán Ahern, who also called for a moratorium on building new data centres.

Ahern told the Dáil that because of the “massive” energy demand from data centres, gas is setting the wholesale price of energy rather than renewables, which makes everyone’s electricity bills higher. 

“This is only going to get worse if we continue to build more and more of them,” Ahern said.

Speaking on behalf of the government, Minister for Climate, Energy and the Environment Darragh O’Brien tabled a counter motion and said there were elements in the Labour motion that he “profoundly” disagreed with.

Wrapping up his contribution at the two-hour debate, O’Brien said:

“[I] thank the Labour Party colleagues for the motion, decent debate, won’t be accepting the motion but look forward to continue working with you on a constructive basis.” 

He said data centres are good for Ireland as a small open economy and likened them to Germany’s car manufacturing industry.

O’Brien suggested that retrofitting homes is a better way to “protect families and businesses”. 

In his contribution, Ahern noted that data centres currently consume 22% of electricity in Ireland and that this is projected to increase to 30% by 2030 and as much as 55% in the following years if their growth is not constrained.

“This is insane. More than every household, every school, every hospital, every small business, every farm and every factory combined.

“An entire energy system increasingly is organised around the demands of a small number of large corporate users and their interests,” Ahern said.

He said 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’s not about punishing data centre operators or deterring investment. It’s simply about making sure that ordinary households aren’t left footing the bill, which is presently the case,” Ahern said.

Labour's climate spokesperson Ciarán Ahern

Speaking ahead of the debate, Ahern called for an independent study to be commissioned on electricity prices, carbon emissions, water usage and grid stability.

“We cannot continue to blindly build data centres until we fully understand the impact these centres are having on our energy infrastructure,” he said. 

He told the Dáil: “This is not a question about whether or not data centres should or shouldn’t exist, and I hope the government don’t try to reduce the debate to those binary terms again. The debate has moved on.

“The question is whether we’re content to continue to allow unlimited expansion of these data centres without regard for the very real consequences on people and our environment.”

He said he hoped the fact that the United Nations recently described Ireland as a “cautionary tale”  when it comes to data centres would be a wake-up call for the government.