We cannot afford to place greater strain on the national energy grid by removing the ban on data centre development in Dublin, according to Social Democrats environment spokesperson Jennifer Whitmore.<\/p>\n
Deputy Whitmore said:<\/p>\n
\u201cI have major concerns with plans which went to cabinet this morning which seek to lift the ban on the development of data centres in Dublin, which speak of \u201csustainable\u201d data centre development and co-locating data centres with renewable energy resources.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe production of renewable energy sources should be prioritised for residents and small businesses – approving new data centres only means that we continue to chase our tail in terms of climate goals and energy demand.<\/p>\n
\u201cAny strategy on data centres needs to set out the energy usage by data centres that we can afford from a climate, energy security, and pricing perspective, which these rules fail to establish.<\/p>\n
\u201cElements of these rules are clear examples of greenwashing – there might be an 80% renewable requirement, but developers can still rely on on-site fossil fuel backup which could lead to locking in carbon-heavy infrastructure.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere was a report this weekend that major transport projects are at risk of delay due to the huge demand already being placed on the energy grid – removing this ban will only worsen these delays.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have had other warnings from senior officials in government that the country faces a choice between housing development or data centre development – there\u2019s only one answer when it comes to which of these is needed more.<\/p>\n
\u201cData centres are already on course to consume 30% or more of our electricity by 2030 \u2013 far above the the proportion of average use in other EU countries<\/p>\n
\u201cThe government must get its priorities right when it comes to our national energy grid.\u201d<\/p>\n
January 13th, 2026<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" We cannot afford to place greater strain on the national energy grid by removing the ban on data centre development in Dublin, according to Social Democrats environment spokesperson Jennifer Whitmore. Deputy Whitmore said: \u201cI have major concerns with plans which went to cabinet this morning which seek to lift the ban on the development of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":11668,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[676,539,727,268,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15013","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-data-centres","category-energy","category-environment","category-jennifer-whitmore","category-press-release"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n