Ireland’s People Before Profit party has proposed an amendment to the Planning & Development (Climate Emergency Measures) Bill 2021 that would place a complete ban on the development of data centre and other fossil fuel-reliant infrastructure.
The party, which holds 4 of the 160 seats in Dáil Éireann (Ireland’s lower house),said the bill addresses “glaring gaps” in the Irish government’s Climate Bill. The bill in the first of five stages, although by no means guaranteed to pass into law, speaks to growing concern around Ireland’s ability to meet its Paris climate agreement commitments.
The data centre industry is an Irish success story, with the largest concentration of hyperscale self-build data centres in Europe located in Dublin. Furthermore, Irish builders and engineers including Winthrop, Sisk, Kirby, Collen and Mercury are active on many more data centre development sites internationally.
