The Green Party in Mayo has welcomed that Mayo County Council had requested further information on the planning application for a data centre at the former Asahi plant in Killala, and that the party was broadly open to its location on the north Mayo coast.
However, the party said that data centres in Mayo, like all big energy users, would have to live within our climate obligations, and that any planning permission for the Mayo Data Hub should include provision for a battery plant to ensure that the centre could run off 100% wind energy, generated close-by.
Ireland, it said, was a good location for data centres because of our cool climate.
In addition, Killala could be particularly suitable because of its suitability for renewables and because it is close to new and existing intercontinental fibre connections.
Mayo Green Party chairperson Micheál Ó Conaill said that data centres were important to Ireland’s digital and economic future, and that it was too simplistic just to dismiss them out of hand.
He also said that if a data centre in Killala was to employ 20 people – also dismissed by objectors – it would be equivalent of 20,000 jobs in Dublin.
Mr. Ó Conaill has been giving more details to Midwest Radio’s Michael D. McAndrew….
