More than 870,000 jobs created by data centres? Don’t make me laugh |
Irish exceptionalism is an interesting thing. In the 2000s, our property market was sui generis, it was just that nobody else understood our particular brand of originality, until ... well, you know. Our corporate tax take and its density in a handful of companies is unmatched in its inimitability. Now, look over there. We don’t “do” the far right because Irish people are uniquely sound. Please ignore the arson, riots and racism. As for the scale of data centre development and its impact? As you already you know, we’re special. This stance on important aspects of our economy and society is akin to that of a deluded friend declaring that he’s not crazy, it’s everyone else who’s mad.
A number of things connected to the world of data centres happened in recent weeks, offering Government an incantation that breaks the spell of exceptionalism. It’s called perspective. A report by Friends of the Earth Ireland and Beyond Fossil Fuels, The Cost of Data Centres, estimated that the average household may have paid around €360 in additional electricity costs between 2015 and 2023 due to the pressure data centres put on the grid.
Minister for Finance Simon Harris said it’s easy to say data centres are the “bogeyman”, an emotive term designed to deflect justified critique. But people know the cost of their bills, and their relative expensiveness is backed up by data. The Household Energy Price Index recently published stats for May, with Dublin the most expensive capital in the EU for electricity, 52 per cent higher than the European average. In April, Eurostat found that for medium-sized household customers, Ireland had the highest electricity prices in the........