With huge numbers of households struggling with the hikes in electricity and energy costs, how does the Government think it is okay for ordinary working people and householders to pay twice as much per unit of electricity as the billionaires who own the data centres in this country? Now that it is clear it is not going to do so, how can the Government honestly justify not supporting imposing a levy on those billionaire owners of the data centres so that we can give a serious break, €500, to every household to help them with their energy bills and to all those with disability, yet oppose that and defend the status quo? Is that not the reason people will be marching again this weekend on the Affordable Ireland demonstration in advance of the budget, because the Government is protecting the interests of the billionaire owners of data centres that are hoovering up our electricity while ordinary working families are being hammered with increased energy and electricity bills?

I am pretty sure no matter what we did in this House, the Deputy would be encouraging people to protest either way and that is people's right. That is something we must protect, but he cannot ignore the fact that as a Government, this year alone, we have introduced supports of €1.4 billion.

In other parts of Europe and the world, very few governments have been able to introduce that type of funding and support to assist people at what is a really difficult time. The debate will take place later this evening-----

Not for the data centres, it is not.

-----and obviously the Deputy does not acknowledge that data centres represent critical infrastructure, that they are central to our modern economy and that significant work was being done through the large energy user action plan, LEAP, which is the new strategy looking at large energy users. A main focus of that is how we can introduce more renewable energy and how we can reduce the energy needs of those large data centres. We do not have any other large industries that are drawing on our grid but I fully agree with the Deputy that we need to make sure that individual homeowners are not paying for larger businesses and their energy costs and their needs.

They are.

There is a clear plan in place, which is already happening because I have seen it in many businesses, to make sure that where possible, businesses put in place their own measures to make sure they are focused on a zero-sum approach and can produce their own electricity and their own grid through renewable sources. That is where we need to get to and I agree with the Deputy on that.