151. Deputy Pa Daly asked the Minister for Climate, Energy and the Environment if he will report on the demands data centres place on Ireland’s critical infrastructure; the plans to increase this demand; if he is satisfied with our infrastructure’s ability to withstand this increased demand; the way in which this will be paid; the contributions data centres have made to finance existing and increased demand; his views on whether access to this infrastructure should operate on a first come, first served model; and if he will make a statement on the mater. [65799/26]

Ireland’s industrial electricity demand is primarily concentrated in our digital economy. This is our core energy-intensive industry. Data centres are fundamental to Ireland’s position as a leading global hub for digital and technology-driven enterprise. They form a critical part of the State’s digital infrastructure, supporting activities including cloud computing, artificial intelligence, financial services and public sector digital services. Their economic footprint is substantial with €104 billion in gross value added (around 20% of Ireland’s economy) enabled by data-centre-dependent sectors, approximately 183,000 people working in Ireland’s ICT sector and around 19,500,000 jobs directly in data centre construction operations.

While Ireland has attracted some of the best data centre and tech companies in the world, the integration of large-scale demand on our grid must be facilitated in a sustainable way. Government's Large Energy User Action Plan (LEAP) will progress a plan-led approach for future energy intensive industry which will unlock investment and innovation in Ireland’s renewable energy sector, maximise wider benefits in jobs and skills across Ireland’s regions and ensure the cost of developing necessary additional infrastructure is borne in a manner which is fair. This is being reinforced by unprecedented grid investment of up to €18.9 billion that is beneficial to all of the economy.

Alongside LEAP, the CRU LEU Connection Policy establishes a sustainable connection pathway for new data centres that manages demand by requiring generation and system support, addressing security of electricity supply and network constraint considerations, and promoting Ireland’s renewable energy ambitions.

Regarding costs, electricity network tariffs are set every year by the CRU to recover the costs of developing, operating, and maintaining the electricity grid. Data Centres saw average increases of 175% in network costs from 2020 to 2026. CRU are currently progressing a multi-annual Electricity Network Tariff Review project to reform how network charges are levied to ensure costs are fairly distributed across different customers.