RTÉ News: “La demonizzazione dei data center” deve finire – Taoiseach
https://www.rte.ie/news/ireland/2025/0314/1502217-data-centres-taoiseach/
di Banania2020
RTÉ News: “La demonizzazione dei data center” deve finire – Taoiseach
https://www.rte.ie/news/ireland/2025/0314/1502217-data-centres-taoiseach/
di Banania2020
24 commenti
He’s really sucking tech bros dick this week.
They offer little in terms of employment outside of constriction and are a drain on our state resources including land.
One man’s data centre is another man’s pornhub
I wonder what Elon and Donald have said to him?
Are there any tech company talking points he doesn’t embrace as gospel?
We need more onshore wind farms and solar installations, along with another look at hydro.
Fee fo fi fum I smell a brown envelope !
Does the general public understand what data centres do?
you know they have a function beyond using electricity and not employing many people?
> The Taoiseach said there is a need for a “mature debate” on the issue, alleging that in his view “there are significant numbers in Dáil Éireann completely disconnected from the reality of economic life”.
He always follows up a call for “mature debate” with a childish insult. It’s like clockwork
Great we’ll have massive offshore wind from 2030 onwards perfect build the additional data centres then. If it’s not a big deal for the populous to wait for, then it’s not a big deal for companies to wait for.
The reality of economic life is that energy bills are some of the highest in the world in Ireland. Bring them down first then maybe build the data centres. Presuming whatever new hype bubble pushing them is there then.
Its up there with demonising international investment funds financing apartment builds, as an example of how confident and yet complete lack of understanding can harm a country through the power of sheer stupidity.
We currently can’t host serious-size AI models in the country because of the lack of data centres, its a massive issue.
The irony of people complaining about data centres by posting about them from their phones on online platforms while netflix plays in the background, which is hosted guess where? In a data centre, is completely lost on them. We need to be pushing forward as a country with this. Create more power generation, upgrade the grid and build more data centres, otherwise we get left behind as a country.
Is there a reason why we don’t build reservoirs on top of hills and use renewable power to pump water up to the reservoir. This can in effect be used as a battery, by storing potential energy. Water can be released down pipes towards a reservoir at the bottom of the hill, through turbines along the way and creating electricity when needed.
A data centre itself probably doesn’t generate huge revenue but what runs through it does, we switch 3 million card swipes daily through a DC and onto the respective banks.
They compliment industries inside and outside of Ireland.
I saw a comment saying that a DC needs 30 staff max, which is simply untrue, they require far more than that.
People would say oh but why not host your stuff in a DC in another country but in some instances it’s legally not possible or just doesn’t make sense to from a networking standpoint
Imagine if your bank didn’t host in Ireland and there was a network outage between Ireland and say mainland EU, you then head to your favourite retailer and try swipe your card and it can’t Auth because it can’t go online to your bank, can’t go to the ATM for the same reason.
DCs are pretty thermally efficient but their power demand is dependent on the services that run on them.
If someone writes shitty code that runs on hardware that isn’t entirely power efficient and the kit spins itself up to the moon
The kit will eat power and will generate more heat requiring more from the DC to handle it.
Tldr this is a rant that had no plan to it 😂
Data centres should only be allowed if they can build and fund their own energy infrastructure requirements, with any excess use tariffed at the standard rate that all households and businesses are charged, and a shutoff in case of energy shortage that they are shut down first before any residential areas.
Lots of well-paid construction jobs give a lot of young lads a start in the trades and big cash injection that we may well very much need if trump has his way with the global economy.
I actually price these things for a living as an estimator.
Most of the ones we price cost around 500 mill, and there are usually several more built on the same site in the years that follow.
Take the money while it’s going isnwhat I’d recommend..
These data centres take up almost 20% of the grid and provide very little job employment. He’s over there up the tech boys backsides.
No one would have an issue with data centres if this government could prove they have the energy capacity to manage them. As things stand the main fear among people is that we don’t (which is true) and as a result could face power shortages leading to increased prices, blackouts etc.
Responsibility is with government to prove that we could handle the additional demand not on people to just abjectly accept them.
I’ve no problems with data centres but I do have a problem in getting ripped off for electricity, let the data centres come, let them invest in the grid and give the citizens / residents subsidised electricity otherwise fuck off elsewhere.
That massive one on the Belgard Road is hardwired directly to the grid.
The hospital, hundreds of meters away, is not.
Priorities.
I’ve no problem with them provided they pay substantially more tax than they cost the tax payer both directly and indirectly (indirectly via the cost for additional electrical capacity etc)
“‘Demonisation of ~~data centers~~ climate-change-accelerating energy waste’ needs to end” ~ Taoiseach
Climate change is good for you. High energy prices are good for you.
Subsidizing tech oligarchs who are taking over the world is good for you.
Giving all of Ireland’s future renewable energy generation capacity to tech oligarchs is good for you.
Maybe if they explained how building more data centres benefit the average Irish person, the general population would be more accepting.
Comments I have heard from people are that everything seems to be working fine at the moment and there’s no demand for faster streaming, gaming and online shopping. Also people are worried about AI taking jobs jobs in future which has a link to the demand for more data centres.
I’ve also noticed how people don’t tend to care much about economic growth anymore as it doesn’t fairly affect the non-wealthy or outside Dublin when there’s massive investment in Ireland. How does Amazon building another data centre and paying feck all in tax benefit me? And then what they do pay in tax gets squandered on bike sheds, scanners or funnelled back into the private sector through IPAS accomodation payments.
Then the government smacks us over the head with energy campaigns telling us we need to reduce our electricity demand by only washing our clothes in the morning or night and then go ahead and build data centres which use 200,000 times more energy than a single household per day.
Some of the complaints arent very well though out I know but that’s what the average person is worried about when they hear “data centre”.
He is of course right. FDI is what keeps us afloat. Without it we would need to gut social welfare and the public sector. Really gut, like go deeper than that guy with the chainsaw in Argentina .
His legacy will be the guy who defended Israel, the bank bailout, datacentres and vulture funds
Argument for the worst taoiseach of all time
Are data centres the new landlords? Do we have to tiptoe around them, worry about their precious egos lest the quite the morket?
Why has my rural home lost power 7 times since Christmas day?