Protest Planned Outside Council Buildings Amid Naas Data Centre Concerns

It's planned for the same day as a council motion is being brought to suspend or alter the P2 site for data centre development in Jigginstown

Social Democrats and Kildare North TD Aidan Farrelly has called for the ceasing of land zoning for data centre construction.

It comes as two centres are planned for Naas.

On 28 September, the Kildare Data Centre Awareness Campaign (KDCAC) will stage a protest, demanding for councillors to vote to rezone land which had been previously rezoned for data centre construction in Naas.

The zoned land, located at Jigginstown, was specifically zoned for data centre development under the Naas Local Area Plan 2021-2027.

Planning permission was granted for a €3 billion data centre campus by Herbata Ltd on a site adjacent to the M7 motorway and Naas Business Park.

However, an appeal has been lodged against it, triggering a formal review process that is now before An Coimisiún Pleanála.

The campaign group is calling for the removal of zoned land for a proposed second data centre site before any planning application is lodged.

The meeting on 28 September will take place at 1:30pm outside Áras Chill Dara on John Devoy Road in Naas.

It's at a time when data centre energy consumption has risen from 5pc in 2015 to 23pc as of July this year.

During a Dáil debate, Farrelly asked for a circular to be issued to all Local Authorities across the country to stop allowing land to be zoned for such developments.

Speaking during yesterday's (17 September) debate, Deputy Farrelly said in a time of a "record level of profits" for energy suppliers, he remarked that "everything is going up".

"Naas is unique for many reasons, one that it's probably not so proud of right now, is that it has land zoned specifically for data centre use.

"I'm not aware of any other town in this country where lands are zoned specifically and only for data centres to build on, there's something significantly wrong with that."

While requesting for the ceasing of land zoning for data centre construction, he said "we don't have the infrastructure, we don't have the resources and we're having to deny the fact that we're interfering with economic reports".

Also raising the issue in the Dáil was Sinn Féin Kildare TD Réada Cronin, describing the two planned centres at Jigginstown and Herbata for the area as "monstrous", while also making reference to the "huge concern" expressed by people in North Kildare surrounding the issue.

In response to Cronin, Taoiseach Micheál Martin assured that "AI is here to stay", citing the EU AI Act which bans "unacceptable use and posing stringent requirements on high risk systems".

The Taoiseach continued to say that the Europe "is the most regulated, [the] US isn't", in reference to the concerns regarding AI misbehaving in recent times.

Even though concerns have been raised about the proliferation of the centres, yesterday (17 September) saw An Coimisiún Pleanála overturn a previous decision to giving the go ahead to a development by Mayo Data Hub in Killala, Co. Mayo.

Following objections, the commission says there was no evidence the proposed development could avail of locally generated renewable power, or that there was sufficient capacity in the grid to service it.