Homes or Home Pages – Data centre surge jeopardises climate & housing targets
Homes or Home Pages - Data centre surge jeopardises climate & housing targets - The Labour Party
- Time for Government to be honest about data centre costs
Labour’s Climate and Energy Spokesperson Ciarán Ahern TD has called on the Government to come clean with the public about the true cost of Ireland’s data centre boom. New figures from the Central Statistics Office (CSO) show electricity demand from data centres rose by 10% in 2024 — more than triple the increase seen across homes and other businesses. This sector alone consumed 22% of the country’s electricity last year, a stark rise from 5% in 2015. Deputy Ahern said Ireland cannot hit its climate or housing targets while continuing to ramp up energy-hungry data infrastructure and called for an urgent policy reckoning.
Deputy Ahern said:
“These figures paint a stark picture. Data centres are now eating up more than a fifth of our electricity supply, and their appetite is only growing. If we keep going like this, we’ll blow past our emissions targets and sink any remaining chance of reaching our climate goals.
“It’s not just the climate targets at risk. The Secretary General of the Department of the Environment recently said if we continue expanding data centres at the current rate, we won’t have enough energy for the housing we so desperately need. That is the stark trade-off: homes or home pages.
“We need transparency and leadership from Government: are we going to meet our climate targets, or are we going to keep ploughing ahead with expansion of data centres?
“Data centres are and will continue to be an important part of our industrial infrastructure. Labour are not against them, but we cannot allow data centres to come at the expense of our climate goals, our energy security or the need to put roofs over our peoples’ heads.
“I would again urge Government to introduce a moratorium on new construction until such a time as we can be sure that they will not impact on our climate targets and our energy security. That means introducing a robust legislative and regulatory framework so that we can be sure they will not threaten our binding limits on carbon emissions or our energy security”.
“Labour is demanding clarity from Government: will we meet our climate obligations, or will we continue down this unsustainable path of endless data centre expansion? The time for double-speak is over. The government must stop pretending that there are no trade-offs involved in its current data centre expansion plan. The public needs to know the plan — or whether there even is one.”