Latest news with #OonaghBuckley
Irish Times
18-06-2025
- Business
- Irish Times
Will rent reform hitting holiday lets irk Coalition's own Ministers?
Last month, the secretary general at the Department of Environment, Climate and Energy stepped in at the last minute for her Minister, Darragh O'Brien, at a clean energy event. She told the event that data centres were eating up all of our energy supply. With this one throwaway comment, Oonagh Buckley attracted more headlines and political attention than most senior civil servants would be comfortable with. 'We're having to even think about prioritising what is the social need of the demand – is it housing or is it AI?' she asked. 'We're going to have to think much more about managing demand.' READ MORE As existential questions about our infrastructure continue to plague the Government, Jack Horgan-Jones is reporting in our lead story today that data centres would be able to use 'private wires' to power themselves independently from the ESB power grid. Big energy users would be able to build and operate electricity infrastructure, including between power sources and data centres, under a policy that will be published next month. It comes after Sean O'Driscoll, head of the ESRI and a member of the Government's new infrastructure tax force, warned on Tuesday that Ireland cannot expect to attract companies 'like Apple, Microsoft, Google into Ireland and say to them: 'we'd like some of your jobs, but we're not going to provide you with data centres.' We can provide them with data centres if we invest in our infrastructure,' he said. On the subject of infrastructure, Michael McDowell also has an interesting column today on how to reform our planning system and neuter the constant issue of judicial reviews being taken against planning decisions. RPZs The Government promised us that it wasn't afraid to take unpopular decisions on housing. It probably didn't anticipate them being unpopular with their own ministers, though. We are reporting this morning that thousands of short-term holiday lettings on the west coast and elsewhere will require planning permission as a result of emergency laws extending Rent Pressure Zones (RPZs) nationwide by the end of this week. Minister of State at the Department of Agriculture and, more importantly, Kerry TD, Michael Healy-Rae tells The Irish Times that he is 'extremely concerned' about the impact this policy would have on his constituency. In advance of the law changing, Killarney is the only part of Kerry currently covered by RPZs. This means that the entire Kerry coastline from Listowel down to Kenmare is dotted with Airbnb style lettings, which may be crucial to rural tourism, which will all now be forced to apply for planning permission. Asked if he wished to comment, Mr Healy-Rae did in his own inimitable style: 'Isn't it a major concern of mine?' This issue likely won't escape the notice of senior Government ministers hailing from some of Ireland's most bucolic constituencies, including Kerrywoman Norma Foley, who are almost certain to face ferocious representations from unhappy Airbnb hosts on this issue. Trouble could also be brewing between two ministerial James' on the impact RPZ reforms will have on students. At a press conference yesterday, Minister for Housing James Browne told reporters that there will be no special exemption for students under new RPZ legislation. This was despite an appeal for such an exemption coming from Minster for Further and Higher Education James Lawless. The pair had been due to meet yesterday, but that has been deferred to next week. Immigration Elsewhere in the paper, Conor Gallagher and Martin Wall are reporting on the decision agreed at Cabinet yesterday to buy the Citywest Hote l and make it a permanent processing centre for International Protection Applicants. As the annual bill for using private providers to accommodate people who come to Ireland seeking asylum has breached €1 billion a year, Minister for Justice Jim O'Callaghan is under pressure to find ways to provider 14,000 State-owned beds for asylum seekers by 2028. Buying Citywest will cost the State €148.2 million, but Mr O'Callaghan has predicted that the Government 'will have got our money back in terms of the investment' after four years. The company that runs the hotel received more than €18 million between January and March of this year, for accommodating both international protection applicants and Ukrainian refugees. And finally, Joe Brennan is reporting in Business on the Government moving yesterday to lift the State's remaining €500,000 executive pay cap at bailed-out banks after selling its remaining shares in AIB. Best Reads With the inauspicious image of a fox who drowned in the fountain outside Government buildings yesterday, Miriam Lord writes about the Groundhog Day style stagnant exchanges between Opposition and Government on the perma-crisis of housing While writing about the Irish presidency, the job that nobody seems to want, Kathy Sheridan offers up a rollicking read on the delirious days of the 2011 election. And Sally Hayden is reporting from Beirut on the 'sense of panic and deepening fears of a wider conflict' in the Middle East, with aerial attacks and missiles being fired between Israel and Iran Playbook The Dáil schedule today is being dominated by emergency legislation to extend RPZs to the entire country. After a housing rally outside Leinster House last night, Labour published its own emergency amendments to the legislation which it says would introduce a two year rent freeze and fine landlords up to €100,000 for breaking the law. The Dáil schedule looks like this: 09.00 Topical Issues 10.00 Private Members' Business is a Motion from the Independent and Parties Technical Group on public transport experiences 12.00 Leaders' Questions 12.34 Other Members' Questions 12.42 Questions on policy or legislation 13.12 Motions without debate, which is Finance (Local Property Tax and Other Provisions) (Amendment) Bill 2025 – Financial Resolution. 14.13 Government business, which is devoted to getting through second stage, committee stage and remaining stages of the Residential Tenancies (Amendment) Bill 2025, the new RPZ reforms 19.47 Government business then moves to committee stage of the Mental Health Bill 2024 22.17 Deferred division on the: Criminal Law (Prohibition of the Disclosure of Counselling Records) Bill 2025, Ruth Coppinger's bill to ban the use of counselling notes in rape trials The Seanad schedule looks like this: 10.30 Commencement matters 11.30 Order of Business 14.00 Government business, first slot of which is for Statements on Food Promotion and New Markets 15.30 Followed by another Government business slot, for Statements on the Farrelly Commission Report 17.00 Private Members' Business, which is a motion on enterprise matters and business supports for SME's It's a busy day for Committees, with all of the following taking place on the Leinster House campus today: the HSE are appearing before the disability matters committee, Hiqa and the minister for older people are appearing before the health committee to answer questions on nursing homes, the Ireland-Palestine Solidarity Campaign will be talking to politicians about the Israeli Bond Programme and the Committee on Social Protection will hear from the ESRI, which is proposing a new Child Benefit tier to challenge child poverty. This comes after the Taoiseach signalled this week that such a measure is on the table for Budget 2026. You can read the full committee schedule here .
Irish Examiner
10-06-2025
- Business
- Irish Examiner
Ireland's data centres now consume more than a fifth of national electricity
Data centres continued to consume a greater share of Ireland's energy last year, with their electricity consumption rising by 10% in 2024. New figures from the Central Statistics Office (CSO) show that data centre electricity use is rising far more rapidly than any other sector, with homes and other business customers increasing by only 3% in the same period. Data centres accounted for 22% of the electricity consumed in Ireland last year — up from 21% in 2023, and significantly higher than the 5% share they held in 2015. In that nine-year period, between the beginning of 2015 and the end of 2024, electricity consumption by data centres rose by 531%. In contrast, the proportion of electricity consumed by urban and rural households has declined. In 2015, urban households used 22% of all electricity. By 2024, this fell to 18%. Rural households used 10% in 2024, down from 12% in 2015. CSO statistician Dr Grzegorz Głaczyński said: 'In 2024, total metered electricity consumption reached 31,903 GWh – gigawatt hours - a 4.3% increase compared with 2023. 'Large Energy Users, a category including major data centres and significant industrial consumers, increased their consumption by 9% between 2023 and 2024. This group represented 31% of total metered electricity consumed in 2024, up from 30% in the previous year.' Despite frequent doubts — even from its own civil servants — the Government continues supporting data centre development. In the Programme for Government, its data centre policy states that it 'recognises the criticality of digital infrastructure in economic growth.' However, critics argue that data centre expansion is incompatible with Ireland's energy system, climate targets, and existing infrastructure. Last month, the Department of the Environment's most senior civil servant warned that data centres had exhausted the energy grid's spare capacity — forcing policymakers to consider difficult trade-offs. 'We're having to even think about prioritising what is the social need of the demand [for energy] — is it housing or is it AI (artificial intelligence)?' Secretary General Oonagh Buckley said. 'We're going to have to think much more about managing demand.' Her comments were dismissed by the Government, with Minister for Public Expenditure Jack Chambers said she had oversimplified the issue. 'I think the binary simplicity that was put forward by the secretary general doesn't reflect the general issue that's at play here,' Mr Chambers said. Previously, Taoiseach Micheál Martin said the 'demonisation of data centres' must end, calling the debate 'ill-informed.' Read More Tánaiste to seek Cabinet approval on bonus scheme to keep specialists in air corps
