250. Deputy Aidan Farrelly asked the Minister for Enterprise, Tourism and Employment if he will clarify whether a transfer of shares in an Irish company that holds planning permission for a large data centre to an entity controlled from outside the EU would require notification under the Screening of Third Country Transactions Act 2023; and the number of such notifications concerning data centres that have been received since the Act commenced. [75216/26]

My Department is the National Competent Authority with responsibility for inward investment screening.  The Screening of Third Country Transactions Act, 2023, commenced on the 6th of January 2025, provides for the implementation of Ireland’s inward investment screening mechanism.

Following commencement, mandatory notification of a foreign direct investment is required where the direct investor or the ultimate owner of the investor is a third country undertaking seeking to acquire control of a sensitive or critical asset or undertaking in the State. The Act only applies retrospectively to transactions completed within ten days prior to its commencement.

Mandatory notification applies to investments that meet all of the criteria set out in Section 9(1) of the Act i.e. a transaction is notifiable where

(a)  a third country undertaking, or a person connected with such an undertaking, as a result of the transaction acquires control of an asset or undertaking in the State, or changes the percentage of shares or voting rights it holds in an undertaking in the State from 25 per cent or less to more than 25 per cent, or from 50 per cent or less to more than 50 per cent

(b)  the cumulative value of the transaction (and other related transactions between the parties) is equal to or greater than €2,000,000 in the 12 months prior to the date of the transaction

(c)  the same undertaking does not control all of the parties involved in the transaction i.e. where the ultimate control remains unchanged, no mandatory notification is required

(d)  the transaction relates to, or impacts upon, one or more of the matters referred to in Article 4(1)(a) – (e) of EU Regulation 2019/452.

All investment screening notifications are considered by my officials in accordance with criteria, set out within the relevant EU and National legislation for investment screening, related to security or public order.

The nature of the activity being undertaken by the target is one of the key criteria determining whether an inward investment transaction must be notified.

For transactions relating to critical infrastructure, as detailed in Article 4(1)(a) of EU Regulation 2019/452, consideration is given to the activities of the target Irish company and an assessment of its criticality. This includes reference to definitions provided for in EU Directive 2022/2557 on the resilience of critical entities.

Due to the commercial sensitivities involved in investment transactions captured by the Act, I am not in a position to comment on individual cases. Reporting under the Act is conducted on an aggregated and anonymised basis and the Annual Report for the first year of the Act’s operations in 2025 is available on my Department’s website.