People Before Profit welcomes the news that South Dublin County Council has rejected planning permission for Google Ireland to build a new data centre at Grange Castle Business Park in Clondalkin. Insufficient national grid capacity and lack of renewable energy are among the reasons for refusal.
Gino Kenny TD said “The development of new data centres will make it next to impossible for Ireland to meet its climate targets. The average data centre uses the same amount of electricity as 23,000 homes. By 2028 they are expected to use 27% of all electricity in Ireland. This is also putting a huge strain on our electricity grid and may lead to rolling electricity blackouts according to the Commission for Regulation of Utilities (CRU).”
He added “They use between 500,000 litres and 5 million litres of water a day. In Dublin our water supply is already under a huge amount of strain and Data centres will only increase this.”
Cllr Darragh Adelaide said “According to the Guardian, up to 88% of what is stored in the cloud is considered junk data that will not be accessed again by users. Apps, websites and cookies track our day-to-day activities, this information is stored and sold to other businesses. Data centres provide very few jobs but take large amounts of resources from our local community.”
Cllr Madeleine Johansson added: “Last Summer Councillors on South Dublin County Council voted in favour of my motion to ban further data centre development in the area, currently half of all data centres in Ireland are located here, however, the government undemocratically overturned this decision. Much like the housing crisis, the government is more interested in the profits of big investors and big business than the needs of our communities or the environment. It is hugely welcome to see that the council have rejected this application and are listening to Councillors and the community.”
