Protest will call for the banning of new data centres in south Dublin

This Friday, November 18 at 1pm a protest will be held at the Department of Local Government at Custom House Quay to demand that the Minister Peter Burke uphold a ban on data centres in South Dublin County.

In June of this year the majority of councillors in South Dublin voted in favour of an amendment to bring in a moratorium on new data centres in South Dublin County for the duration of the Development Plan 2022-28.

A draft direction to remove the amendment was issued by the Minister in late July, and that was put out to public consultation.

A final direction is expected to be issued by the Minister in the near future and protesters will be calling on Minister Burke to uphold the councillors’ decision.

The amendment was proposed by People Before Profit councillor Madeleine Johansson.

There are currently 34 data centres in south Dublin and concerns have been raised about the capacity of the electricity grid to cope with the pressure from the centres on the grid.

According to Eirgrid; Over the last four years there have been annual increases in demand usage of around 600 GWh from data centres alone – equivalent to the addition of 140,000 households to the power system each year.

Cllr Madeleine Johansson said in a statement: “This is the final stage of the plan and if the ban is overturned it means that new data centres could get planning permission in the area despite South Dublin already having almost half of all the data centres in the country.

“Power hungry data centres are placing an enormous strain on the electricity grid both locally and nationally.

“The energy demand of the centres are likely to cause blackouts in some areas and will contribute to national carbon emissions.”