Microsoft denies the UN Special Rapporteur access to their data centre facility in Dublin

This raises serious questions for the Government on how the data centre industry is being allowed to flout transparency and accountability.

In yet another instance of the data centre industry’s shocking disregard for transparency and accountability, Microsoft denied a UN expert [1] access to their data centre facility in Dublin, during the expert’s recent official visit to Ireland.

Astrid Puentes Riaño, the UN Special Rapporteur on the human right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment, was on an official country visit to Ireland this month, identifying best practices and challenges relating to the mandate of the human right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment. Astrid heard from multiple civil society organisations, met with Government officials and academics, as well as made relevant site visits.

Microsoft’s refusal to allow the UN watchdog to visit their data centre facility in Grange Castle raises serious questions for the Government on how the industry is being allowed to flout basic governance. It also underlines the need for more regulation of the data centre industry. The UN Special Rapporteur’s visit to Microsoft’s data centre facility would have been important for the UN expert to obtain direct and firsthand information on one of Ireland’s most polluting industries [2]. 

Microsoft's refusal to provide access to the UN Special Rapporteur took place in the same week that the Minister for Climate, Energy and the Environment, Darragh O'Brien, attended the International Energy Agency’s event on data centres in Paris, which had Microsoft representatives in attendance. It was also in the same week that Microsoft opened their doors to journalists, letting them visit their data centre facility. 

This raises a critical question - what are they afraid of? Microsoft has serious questions to answer around accountability and its social license to operate in Ireland, especially at a time when it is seeking to expand its data centre portfolio in the country.

Big Tech enjoys a lot of special treatment from the Irish Government, but they are not above the law and they are not above public scrutiny. Data Centres account for over 30% of emissions in South Dublin County Council, with companies like Microsoft and Echelon building gas plants in Clondalkin to feed their energy demand. More and more pipelines are being built across Grange Castle to serve the data centres in the vicinity. They have saturated the local grid to such an extent in South West Dublin that ESB substations, built to accommodate future housing demand, have had their capacity totally used up by data centre demand.

Instead of reigning in the Tech industry and holding it to account, the Government looks set to hand even more national resources over to speculative data centre buildout through its proposed Private Wires bill. If passed, this bill would let data centres build out their own private electricity networks across the country. It would exempt them from network charges, while still letting them hoard capacity on the public grid through requiring a back up power connection. To do this at a time when so many households and small businesses are facing massive energy bills raises serious questions around whose interests are being protected, and who is being left out in the cold by this Government.

Notes:

1] The UN expert: Astrid Puentes Riaño, the UN Special Rapporteur on the human right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment. A Special Rapporteur is an independent expert appointed by the UN Human Rights Council to examine and report back on a country situation or a specific human rights theme.

In addition to an end-of-mission statement she issued at the conclusion of her Ireland visit, Astrid will also be presenting a report on her visit to Ireland to the UN Human Rights Council in March 2027.

2]

• Data Centres use over 23% of electricity in the country. This is forecast to grow to 30% by 2030. 
• Eirgrid projections suggest this figure could have been as high as 27% in 2025, more than any other sector, indicating that the energy grid is being leveraged to facilitate the tech industry above all others users. 
• Globally, this is unprecedented; per capita, data centres in Ireland now use a bigger share of national electricity supply than any other reported country in the world. Government bodies like the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland, the Climate Change Advisory Council and National Economic Social Council have all raised the alarm regarding the Government’s continuing expansion of the industry. 
• Only 1 in 6 data centre operators in Ireland submitted data to the European Energy Efficiency directive, documenting their energy use, water use and other environmental impacts.
• Data centres can also place huge demands on an area’s water supply. Data centres in Ireland can require up to 18,000 litres of water a day.

Blog by Rosi Leonard, Data Centre Campaign Lead & Network Development Coordinator.