The state of New York is 75 per cent larger than Ireland. It is home to 133 data centres. Our much smaller island has 129 data centres (121 in the Republic and eight in the North). New York is worried that it has too many – our Government can’t get enough.

In July the governor of New York, Kathy Hochul, declared a year-long moratorium on new hyperscale data centres in her state: the “scale and speed of development has put unprecedented demand on energy and water resources and threatens to drive up utility costs. Before it goes any further I need safeguards in place to protect New Yorkers.”

Ireland hosts 10 times the European per capita average of data centres. Our electricity grid is in danger of being overwhelmed, we have woefully underdeveloped water infrastructure – and we are all paying higher energy bills. But who in Government is saying “before it goes any further, I need safeguards in place to protect Irish people”?

It seems likely that the Scottish parliament will shortly declare a moratorium on the building of new data centres. In the US more than a dozen other states are actively considering following New York’s lead.

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