'We'll end up eating Bill Gates's apples': councillor warns on loss of farmland

The growing concern over the extent of Ireland’s electricity supplies going to the operation of data centres got an airing in the chamber of the Mullingar Kinnegad Municipal District last week.

Cllr Denis Leonard said that across Europe, data centres typically use 3 per cent of the electricity of their host countries – but in Ireland, that figure is 23 per cent and expected to rise to 26 per cent.

The problem was not solely that over a quarter of Ireland’s electricity is going in to these "monstrous" data centres, but that "hundreds and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds" of acres of solar farms are being created to feed that need.

His concern, he explained, was that the diversion of so much arable land from agricultural use, could seriously undermine food security in the future, while the disproportionate amount of water and electricity used by data centres could compromise housing and local development infrastructure for citizens, and risk job losses.

Cllr Leonard was speaking on his motion asking that the district look at its policies around data centres and industrial wind and solar farms.

While that would form part of the County Development Plan, he was concerned that it might mean decisions on policies might not be made until 2027 or 2028.

"My concern is if we wait till 2028, there’s going to be about four or five more applications in for wind farms, solar farms, data centres if we don’t get a handle on this," he stated, pointing out that already under consideration is the one proposed for Rochfortbridge despite local concerns about the adequacy of the road infrastructure, among other issues.

Cllr Leonard said that the focus seems to be solely on solar and wind energy – but there are other renewable forms, such as hydro, biogas, biomass.

In 2030, because of missed climate targets, Ireland will be facing a €20bn fine, and the data centres were, he said, contributing massively to Ireland’s failure to hit its climate targets.

He also warned that rather than creating jobs, they are leading to a loss of jobs, as they are facilitating AI, which is displacing jobs.

"How are we who are on the ground and in local government, who are to look after roads and local needs and energy needs and local infrastructure and community development, not given a voice to say ‘Hold on: if we have too many of these in our community then it’s going to take away jobs; it’s going to take electricity’," he said, going on to warn that studies are showing that the cost of electricity could go up anywhere from €300 to €1200 per household over the next five years because the electricity consumer are using is not coming from these solar farms.

"This thing of many jobs being created is a myth and I think we need to have a proper debate with our local planners about our district and we do not want a plethora of data centres, wind farms and solar farms," he said.

He concluded with a chilling prediction: "If we keep building on arable land, we are going to have a food security problem for the next five to 10 years. And we’ll end up eating Bill Gates’s apples."

Fully in support of Cllr Leonard’s points was Cllr Emily Wallace, who said that as the Rochfortbridge application was going through, she rang the planning section to see what were the guidelines in relation to setback distances from residents to a solar farm and discovered there are none.

"I know one family that will have the solar farm [in Rochfortbridge] that’s currently planned 150 metres from their back door and it’s completely unacceptable," she said, adding that the immediate pressure for data and green energy infrastructure could not be allowed to really undermine and upset the basic right to live in a rural community.

Cllr David Jones also supported Cllr Leonard and said that at the moment energy companies are taking advantage of flaws in Westmeath’s County Development Plan and national governance bodies’ plans. He said the fear now is when one sees a solar or wind farm being installed, "you know what’s coming down the line: a data centre".

"If we don’t ensure that our county development plan is as strong as possible coming into 2027, we’re going to be snookered. We’re going to be covering valuable farmland – good, flat agricultural land in the county – with solar panels with wind farms and with data centres."

Cllr Ken Glynn agreed with the points made, and also said preparation of the County Development Plan was "a tedious, long process", so the sooner it started, the better.

Also in agreement was Cllr Aoife Davitt said while there are obviously specific national guidelines it was the job of council members to listen to constituents and pass on concerns.

The mayor, Cllr Niall Gaffney, also lent his support to the motion, which he described as timely and important and he reminded members that soon, every county is going to have to produce a minimum requirement of clean green energy: "I think it’s important that we have a conversation about when we see our goals and when we see what is required from our county output for clean energy – but that’s a careful consideration going forward because we have a huge amount of solar farms and turbines already built in the county; we have a lot of planning that has been approved, five- and 10-year planning schemes that have been approved. I think it’s important that we know where the targets are and when we’ve hit those targets, the conversation needs to be had about what step is next."

Council official Mary Goldsberry said she would raise the concerns expressed by members with the senior planner, but she also wanted to point out that there were a number of stages involved in preparation of the County Development Plan into which members would have an input.