Ireland is facing an unprecedented energy and climate crisis because successive governments have allowed multinational tech giants to turn our national grid into their personal power source.
While ordinary families face soaring energy bills and the threat of winter blackouts, these massive server warehouses are being given a free pass to consume a staggering portion of our electricity.
Long before other parties began to acknowledge the strain on our infrastructure, People Before Profit were the very first party to go on official parliamentary record calling for a comprehensive ban.
People Before Profit is the only party consistently fighting to stop this ecocidal expansion, championed by current TD Paul Murphy and former TD Bríd Smith, who repeatedly introduced legislative bans in the Dáil, including the Climate Emergency Measures Bill in 2021 and a follow-up Planning Amendment Bill in 2023, to legally halt new data centres.
Our successful South Dublin County Council motion in 2022, saw a panicked central government get involved to order an overturn of the ban.
We aren't just active, we're right. And the situation is getting more serious for Ireland.
• A quarter of our grid: Data centres now consume over 23% of Ireland’s total electricity, which is more than all the rural households in the country combined.
• 80% of the Dublin grid: In Dublin, data centres including Hyperscale AI data centres are projected to swallow up to 80% of the entire region's electricity supply once currently planned developments are complete.
• Half-price energy for data centres: Big Tech companies pay roughly half the rate per unit of electricity (19.1c per kWh)compared to ordinary residential households (36.8c per kWh).
• A third of the grid by 2030: Under current government policy, data centres are on track to consume a completely unsustainable 30% of Ireland’s entire grid capacity by 2030.
• 70% Increase in a decade: Data centres have been responsible for a massive 70% of the entire increase in metered electricity usage across the state since 2015.
• €1.5 Billion: Implementing People Before Profit's proposed 20c per kWh levy on data centres would raise €1.5 billion annually, enough to fund a €500 energy credit for every single household in Ireland.
If you agree we need to ban data centres, join People Before Profit.
See the data centres closest to you here: https://www.datacentermap.com/ireland/