Irish government plans massive roll-out of climate wrecking data centres

In Ireland, the ministers for enterprise and climate, Peter Burke TD and Darragh O’Brien TD, have unveiled the Large Energy User Action Plan (LEAP). This is a major new initiative to deliver new infrastructure for ‘Very Large Energy Users’ (LEUs), which carries implications for every Ireland data centre. The plan, according to the government, will:

…attract the next generation of investment in energy intensive sectors over the coming decades.

It is aimed at “energy intensive sectors” such as:

…semiconductors, pharmaceuticals, precision engineering and data centres.

The Irish economy is heavily dependent on foreign direct investment (FDI), mainly from US tech giants. This latest move follows the Commission for Regulation of Utilities’ (CRU) decision in December 2025. At the time, the CRU ended a moratorium on new power connections to data centres in Ireland.

They brought this in during 2021, when the grid operator warned that any further roll-out of data centres would breach the grid’s capacity. The result could have been rolling blackouts. Data centres currently consume 22% of electricity in Ireland, and this is projected to balloon to 34% by 2034.

A report by Energy Connects detailed how the CRU’s move came after:

The freeze on new connections had drawn criticism from industry groups, who argued that Ireland was missing out on global capital during a boom in infrastructure to support artificial-intelligence applications. Investment in new Irish sites had largely dried up.

Ireland data centre plan to increase fossil fuel usage

Friends of the Earth Ireland (FOTEI) slammed the CRU’s decision at the time. They said:

We have to be clear – this may be a good decision for data centres and renewables developers but it is not a good day for climate, or for households and communities dependent on expensive fossil fuels. This decision weakens the CRU’s standing and makes it hard to avoid the view that the decision is designed chiefly to accommodate further data centre growth.

While new data centres will be forced to invest in renewable capacity that matches 80% of their yearly power requirements, FOTEI says this doesn’t guarantee a decline in emissions. After all, the sun doesn’t always shine, and the wind doesn’t always blow.

When conditions are unfavourable, fossil fuels will be the fallback. In addition, the CRU will allow the scale up on renewables for a data centre to be done over a six year period. Operators will:

…report annually on progress towards and compliance with it.

It’s easy to see how this might be fudged in a country where such facilities are central to the economy.

FOTEI went on to point out how the plans prioritise corporate consumption at the expense of the wider public. Specifically, FOTEI said:

…renewables should be prioritised for public good, especially housing and transport, not for new data centre demand. This decision does nothing to prevent data centres from absorbing a significant share of limited renewables, which could also place upward pressure on household energy costs.

O’Brien — the minister for climate, energy and the environment (to give him his full title) — seemed to do little to dispel this notion when announcing LEAP on Tuesday January 13. Furthermore, He said data centres are:

…central to Ireland’s economic and digital future as they are a key part of our foreign direct investment (FDI) and the associated employment.

He continued:

Many of the significant employers in our state need to see a horizon of certainty when they’re investing. FDI isn’t like a tap, you can’t turn it off for a few years and say we’ll come back to it in five years’ time.

Militarism, water theft, higher energy prices, among other dangers

As recently reported by the Canary, Ireland is coming under increasing pressure to militarise as part of paying its way for infrastructure regarded as crucial to the imperial axis — centred around the US.

Hawkish commentators moan about Ireland “freeloading” on defence spending while supposedly reaping the rewards of the FDI bonanza.

In reality, the vast majority of profits flow back to the metropole. The average Irish citizen sees little benefit. Basics such as health care and housing are still inadequately supplied. Meanwhile, the low taxes that lure US tech giants drive down public revenues globally. These low taxes empower behemoths whose ghoulish CEO’s cosy up to the thug in the White House. The same companies played a key role in an apartheid ethnostate’s genocide in Palestine.

Opposition parties hammered Tuesday’s proposals, with Sinn Féin’s Lynn Boylan saying:

Data centres have already driven up the cost of your energy bills, and made it harder to deliver housing in Dublin.

Now, the government wants to put these centres, and the problems they cause, all round the state, despite there being NO grid capacity for even the smallest of these data centres.

Ciarán Ahern TD, spokesperson on climate for Labour, said:

We are failing to focus on what should be the priority, decarbonising the energy we already use.

US outlet More Perfect Union produced an excellent piece last year on how massive data centres can wreak havoc on the lives of those nearby. We’ve done our own series of articles on how Britain seems to be stacking up problems through prostrating itself before US tech crooks.

It seems Ireland may be headed down the same route of prioritising foreign capital over the public good.

Featured image via the Canary/Unsplash