225. Deputy Mark Ward asked the Minister for Climate, Energy and the Environment the number of data centres in Dublin and the rest of the State; the average energy usage per data centre; the average water usage per centre; the average number of people directly employed per data centre; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [58369/26]

My Department has no direct function in capturing and recording the information requested. However, there is publicly available aggregated information relating to the above and a number of forthcoming measures which will provide greater insight.

The Value of Data Centres to Ireland, an independent report commissioned by the Department of Enterprise, Tourism and Employment, identifies 72 operational, grid-connected data centre buildings as of 2025, predominantly located in the Greater Dublin Area. This report states that currently the industry employs 19,500 directly. Moreover, it can be noted that Ireland’s technology sector, underpinned by digital infrastructure in data centres, accounted for employment of 182,900 people in Q4 2024 - equivalent to 7% of Ireland’s total workforce.

In relation to energy use, electricity is the main source of energy for most data centres operating in Ireland. The Central Statistics Office reports that the percentage share of metered electricity consumption used by data centres in 2025 was 23%.

Uisce Éireann has statutory responsibility for all aspects of public water services including planning, delivery and operation across national, regional and local levels. Uisce Éireann have advised that data centres are not a major driver of demand on the public water supply network, accounting for less than 0.3% of the water supplied by them. Due to advances in cooling technology, modern data centres use relatively small volumes of water. In addition, not all data centres use water from the Uisce Éireann network, with a number of them having their own wells or utilising rainwater harvesting and on-site storage. Uisce Éireann closely monitors water use across all large customers and works with businesses, including data centre operators, to promote efficient and sustainable water use.

Article 12 of the Energy Efficiency Directive 2023/1791 (‘EED’) provides for an obligation for Member States to require that owners and operators of certain sized data centres monitor and make publicly available, subject to Union and national law protecting trade and business secrets and confidentiality, information on key metrics on their energy and sustainability performance. The required indicators relate to energy consumption, cooling, waste heat utilisation, water usage and renewable energy use, among others. Article 12 is supplemented by the directly effective delegated Regulation 2024/1364 which requires the same in-scope data centres, as under Article 12, to report these key performance indicators on their energy performance to a confidential EU database on data centres established and operated by the European Commission. Reporting of this information by data centres in Ireland to this database is ongoing and the Commission is responsible for making it publicly available in an aggregated manner. With respect to the transposition of Article 12, my Department has progressed drafting to an advanced stage. This includes the assignment of compliance oversight which my Department is seeking to implement as soon as possible.