To: Kildare County Councillors
Stop data centre development in Kildare
What we're asking Kildare County councillors to:
- Begin the process of removing the Data Centre zoning at Jigginstown now – before any planning application is submitted.
- Commit to ending the future zoning of land specifically for dedicated Data Centre development in Kildare local area plans.
- Support a moratorium on anymore data centres development in Kildare until the cumltaive impact on our communities, infrastructure, environment and energy capacity has been properly assessed.
Why is this important?
Land beside our homes is zoned exclusively for hyperscale Data Centres.
Two areas near Jigginstown and the M7 are zoned “P - Data Centre Only” in the Naas Local Area Plan (shown in purple below).
The M7 Business Park site already has planning permission - granted by Kildare County Council and now under appeal to An Coimisiún Pleanála. The Jigginstown site, which backs directly onto Primrose Garden, has no planning application yet.
Once an application is lodged, it becomes more difficult to stop - that’s the lesson from the M7 site. Do you want to live this close to a data centre?
WATER
The M7 Business Park site already has planning permission - granted by Kildare County Council and now under appeal to An Coimisiún Pleanála. The Jigginstown site, which backs directly onto Primrose Garden, has no planning application yet.
Once an application is lodged, it becomes more difficult to stop - that’s the lesson from the M7 site. Do you want to live this close to a data centre?
WATER
We’re currently living under a nationwide hosepipe ban and data centres are exempt from it. As commercial users, they can keep using water throughout.
Data centres nationally have used over 1.7 billion litres of public water since 2024, and Uisce Éireann itself admits it can’t fully explain its own figures.
CLOSE TO WHERE WE LIVE
This land is next to homes, schools and horse studs. The Jigginstown site alone is over 7 times the area of Croke Park.
Even with mitigation, developments this size bring 24-hour noise, lighting and years of heavy construction traffic.
ELECTRICITY
Data centres are already 21% of Ireland’s electricity. More data centres mean more pressure on the grid, more gas-fired backup power, and higher costs for all of us as billpayers and taxpayers.
OUR ENVIRONMENT
Ireland’s climate commitments have changed significantly since 2021 – grid capacity, water resilience and our carbon budgets are all under far more pressure now. If Ireland misses its EU climate targets, taxpayers pay the fines.
