I ask the Minister if he is aware of recent comments made by Ronan Kelly of Digital Infrastructure Ireland and if he agrees with his assessment.

I thank the Deputy for his question. All development in Ireland must go through an independent and robust statutory planning and regulatory process, and public participation in such processes is important. It is a matter for the relevant independent bodies to make decisions in line with their statutory powers. Developers of individual projects should consider engaging with local communities in advance of engaging in those processes, so that local communities understand their proposal and to address any concerns in advance. It is also important that developers and their representative bodies are able to make the case in public discourse in economic or social terms for their developments, whether housing, business, factories, data centres or other key infrastructure provided by the private sector.

The Government continues to prioritise a balanced approach to digital infrastructure. This means supporting investment in cloud, connectivity and data services, while driving national targets in renewable energy, grid efficiency and carbon reduction. This balanced approach is reflective of Government policy, which recognises the role that data centres play as a core digital infrastructure and seeks to enable the twin transition of digitalisation and decarbonisation of our economy and society.

The large energy user action plan, published in January 2026, sets out a plan-led approach for very large and energy-intensive investments, including data centres, which, due to their scale and energy consumption, will benefit from co-ordinated national infrastructure planning. The plan-led approach is the first for industry and energy policy, recognising the necessity for both working in tandem in support and continued large-energy user investment in Ireland in the medium to long term.

It is extremely healthy that we are having a public debate around data centres, AI and their impact on our energy networks and communities. However, some of the Minister of State's comments are particularly worrying. He does a disservice to public debate by engaging in reds under the bed or China scaremongering because it disrespects the millions of people across the world, not only here in Ireland, who look at the statistics on the impacts, including visual impacts, that data centres have on their communities.

It is worrying that there are people lobbying governments who are backed by trillionaires who are putting vast amounts of money into lobbying. I see that Digital Infrastructure Ireland, which is partnered with a number of data centre firms, says it lobbies to promote Ireland as the best location to host data. It also wants to expand digital infrastructure here so as to host more data centres, having previously lobbied Government Ministers in the Cabinet about connections policy for data centres to the electricity grid. We should also bear in mind that we already have triple the number of data centres as our nearest competitor in the EU and ten times the EU average.

Again, I am not going to get into a running commentary on comments made by individuals but I will say that while people are entitled to participate in public debate. Planning decisions are made independently on the basis of evidence and law and not public commentary. Communities have an absolute right to engage in the planning process and to have their views heard but the Government has a responsibility to ensure that Ireland can provide the infrastructure necessary for jobs, investment, digital connectivity and public services. That is very much our process and foundation. The Government is very clear that all developments must proceed through an independent, transparent and robust planning and regulatory process. Public participation is at the heart of that.

Policy is made by Government. Legislation is made here in this Chamber and planning follows that policy and legislation. We say they are independent but they are making decisions based on policy and legislation made here by the Minister and the Government, following lobbying, which is quite legitimate. The worrying part of Mr. Kelly's statement was where he stated, "It just moves to the next country, because the investors have the barrel of the gun pointed at all the CEOs and are saying, 'Just get it built', and they’ll go to another country soon enough if they can’t do it here." Do billionaires and trillionaires have a gun to the head the Irish Government around policy and legislation in relation to data centres? This country has ten times the European average of data centres.

The Government has a responsibility to look at both the opportunities and challenges. As I said earlier, data centres are a significant part of our digital economy. The Deputy has not referenced the 180,000 jobs that underpin our digital and services ICT sector. They are closely linked with investment, employment and the wider technological sector. That is crucially important. However, we have been very clear that future development must be sustainable and plan-led. That is the approach we have taken. We have introduced the large-energy user action plan and strengthened the Commission for Regulatory Utilities connection requirements for large-energy users. That approach is not unrestricted growth; our approach is very much managed-led. We want to continue our investment in renewable energy projects. There are strict requirements for large-energy users, these energy-intensive users, to use up to 80% renewable energy.