South Dublin County Council motion

Help support a motion calling for a Data Centre mortarium

As a resident of South Dublin County Council (SDCC) area you have an opportunity to call on your local councillors to support a motion going before the full council meeting for a vote on Monday 8th September

We’ve made it easy for you to contact your local councillors

  1. Write Your Email: Copy and use our template below.
  2. Include Your Address: It is crucial to include your details at the end of the email.
  3. Email Your Councillors: Click the Email Councillors button to start your email (if this doesn't work find email addresses here)

 

Email Councillors

 

Sample Email

Subject: Asking you to support the motion on Monday 8th calling for a data centre moratorium

 

Dear Councillor 

I am writing to ask you to support Councillor Jess Spear’s motion calling for the council to write to the Minister for Climate and the Environment requesting a national moratorium on further data centre expansion.

Data Centres are taking a toll on our housing, our environment, and our pockets, that we simply cannot afford. You will be aware that the Central Statistics Office's recent figures show that data centres are using 22% of electricity in Ireland, and are projected to rise to 30% by 5 years’ time. If this happens, it means data centres will be using more energy than every home in the country. This is higher than any other European country by a significant margin - where the norm is between 2 - 5%. 

South West Dublin is bearing the brunt of this national policy. 50% of all electricity produced in Meath and Dublin goes towards Data Centres, with over 40 Data Centres concentrated in South Dublin County Council alone. Our Council has the opportunity to be leaders on this issue as we have seen first hand the effect that unlimited data centre growth has had in our area with a huge amount of land, water and electricity consumed by data centres despite being one of the areas of highest population growth in the country. 

The concentration of data centres in South Dublin has impacts on climate and air quality. For example, just one data centre in Lucan is producing the most cO2 emissions of any data centre around the country- 130,000 tonnes of CO2 since 2017, the equivalent of running 3,400 car engines for a year. (1)

Data Centres are now consuming so much energy in the local area that they are competing with housing projects - one electrical substation in Castlebaggot near Clondalkin which was built to serve future energy needs of West Dublin and Kildare, has had its output entirely consumed by data centre usage.(2)

We hear a lot about the jobs which data centres create - however when Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment Peter Burke was asked how many jobs are directly created by data centres in Ireland, he was unable to answer. (3) Most data centres only employ a handful of roles once built. Researchers in the United States have shown how based on Amazon’s own data, data centers create 100 times fewer jobs than other types of economic development, ranked by the amount of energy used.(4) 

As a local councillor, you have the power to raise this as an issue with significant impact on the community. Please call for a pause now on new data centres until the risks they pose can be significantly addressed by new rules and regulations to bring transparency and prevent run-away data centre expansion.

Support the motion!

Yours sincerely,

[Your name]

[Your address]


Notes
(1) https://investigates.thejournal.ie/data-centres

(2) CRU Review of Large Energy Users Connection Policy, February 2025, p. 41
https://cruie-live-96ca64acab2247eca8a850a7e54b-5b34f62.divio-media.com/documents/CRU202504_LEU_connection_policy_proposed_decision.pdf

(3) https://www.oireachtas.ie/en/debates/debate/joint_committee_on_environment_and_climate_action/2024-10-24/2/

(4) https://www.citact.org/sites/default/files/CAC-Data-Center-Webinar-Slides-01-27-2024-1.pdf