Kildare residents join national data centre protest
Naas data centre protesters at the weekend in Dublin Photo: Paula Geraghty
IRELAND'S first ever national data centre protest was described as a success by a Naas resident who attended alongside around two thousand others in Dublin on Saturday.
The demonstration was organised by Friends of the Earth Ireland along with community groups, calling for a moratorium on new data centres.
Groups from affected counties including Kildare, Wicklow and Clare marched from Parnell Square to Leinster House. Naas residents featured prominently, with the protest shining a national spotlight on the proliferation of large data centres.
Clyde Doyle, a Naas resident and a leader in the Kildare Data Centre Awareness Campaign, attended the event and told the Kildare Nationalist afterwards:
“It went really well. Yeah, there was a good turnout, so there was a really good reaction as well”.
He continued: “The numbers were significant as well at about 2,000. It was nice because there's a lot of different communities coming together from all over the country dealing with data centres or related issues around them, like just basically large infrastructure being forced on communities”.
Data centres have been a hot topic in Kildare, after Kildare County Council approved Herbata Ltd’s €3 billion data centre complex in Naas, which would triple the electricity demand of the county if built.
The council approved the development subject to conditions, thought that decision is under appeal to An Coimisiún Pleanála.
Also in Naas, Microsoft has acquired a 54.55-hectare site in Jigginstown which is zoned exclusively for data centre use by Kildare County Council.
In addition, the Kildare Innovation Campus proposed for Barnhall Road, Leixlip, includes plans for a phase-one data centre developed along with digital/technology infrastructure.
Across the country, data centres have come into focus, with Waterford City and County Council refusing planning permission for a facility, while the Supreme Court recently cleared the way for a €1.6 billion data centre in Clare.
Mr Doyle felt that the weekend’s protest reflected the national significance of the issue:
“We thought, with the national one in Dublin, we would all get to meet and talk, which was really important, to kind of put that marker down for the government and the authorities that actually this isn't just local now, that we're all here to help each other out.
"We see this being a national issue, kind of a government issue, not just a local, it's not like a local authority only problem where you're dealing with zoning or planning. It's very much national movement now, you know.”
Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil councillors cited concerns about undermining the planning system as they rejected two motions seeking a review of data centre zoning at a meeting of Kildare County Council in September.
It emerged in October that the council was set to write to two government ministers calling for a national moratorium on new data centre development after a Labour Party-led group called for the move.
