How big is P2?
What we're asking for
Two concrete things from Naas Municipal District councillors:
- A motion at the September 2026 meeting of Naas Municipal District requesting that Kildare County Council commence a statutory variation (material alteration) of the Naas Local Area Plan to remove the existing "P - Data Centre" zoning at Jigginstown/Maudlins.
- A public commitment to oppose designating any further land for data centre use in Naas and its environs in future Local Area Plans or Development Plans, unless compelling new evidence justifies it.
Why now - what's actually changed since 2021
The Naas LAP was drafted in 2020 and adopted in 2021. Removing a zoning outside the normal review cycle needs a genuine planning justification, not just a change of local opinion - see our FAQ on precedent. The four points below are the campaign's own argument for why that justification exists; we've marked where each rests on a source we can point to versus where it still needs one.
Electricity network constraints
The Commission for Regulation of Utilities has tightened its policy on new data centre grid connections, citing security-of-supply concerns, and EirGrid has flagged capacity constraints on the national network.
We haven't yet linked this to a specific CRU or EirGrid publication - treat as widely reported rather than independently verified by us; see the "34% average utilisation" figure on The Facts for a related, sourced point.
Water supply resilience
North Kildare and the Greater Dublin Area have seen recurring water supply concerns, including outages and hosepipe bans. Reserving land for large water-consuming development looks harder to justify than it did in 2021.
Source: An Taisce, "Data Centres and Water Use" speaking notes, p.2 (Uisce Éireann, April 2024, on Greater Dublin Area demand exceeding sustainable supply).
Tighter climate obligations
Ireland's carbon budgets are legally binding. How much weight that duty carries in an individual planning decision has been narrowed by recent court rulings - see The Climate Act, Explained - which is part of why we're pursuing a zoning change rather than relying on a future objection.
A changed national conversation
The appropriate scale and location of data centre development is a live national policy question, including proposed "Private Wires" legislation and calls from several opposition parties for a moratorium on new developments.
Source: Friends of the Earth Ireland, "Briefing for groups on Data Centre day of action" - this reflects FOE's campaign framing of the national debate, not an independent count of party positions we've verified ourselves.
What removing the zoning would not do
It would not block employment development on this land. It would remove the requirement that this specific, serviced, strategically-located land be reserved exclusively for one exceptionally electricity- and water-intensive use - and instead let the Council plan positively for a broader range of employment uses (advanced manufacturing, engineering, research, life sciences and other enterprises) whose infrastructure demands are more in keeping with a site this close to housing.
Local impacts worth naming plainly
Even with mitigation measures, developments of this type and scale bring:
- Continuous operational noise from cooling equipment and backup plant, day and night
- External lighting associated with 24-hour operations
- Visual impact from large industrial buildings close to residential streets
- Potential disturbance to neighbouring homes, horse studs and agricultural enterprises
- Heavy construction traffic over a multi-year build-out
We say "potential" deliberately - actual impact depends on the design of any future application, which is exactly why we'd rather this land wasn't reserved for this use at all.
Air quality and health: what the evidence actually says
We haven't found an Ireland-specific study on health impacts from gas-turbine-powered data centres, so we can't put a number on the risk here. The best comparable evidence we've found comes from Virginia, US, where an independent study was commissioned specifically because a data centre began using on-site gas turbines as its primary power source (not backup) next to a residential community - the same basic setup proposed for P1 and, potentially, P2. Modelling permitted emissions from that single facility (eight gas turbines) estimated $53-99 million per year in health-related damages across the affected region, 17-33 additional premature deaths over five years, and increased hospital admissions and asthma-related impacts - with effects reaching over 2.5 million people, not just immediate neighbours. Virginia's population density, air quality baseline and regulatory limits are different from Kildare's, so we're not claiming these exact figures would apply here - but the underlying pollutant (fine particulate matter, PM2.5, from gas combustion) and the exposure mechanism are the same regardless of location.
Source: EmPower Analytics Group study, commissioned by the Piedmont Environmental Council, reported 6 May 2026 (Vantage VA2 facility, Sterling, Virginia).
Noise doesn't only affect people
Given P2's proximity to horse studs and other agricultural enterprises, it's worth noting that noise-welfare research isn't limited to humans. Peer-reviewed studies on livestock generally find that prolonged elevated noise can raise stress hormone levels, elevate heart and respiratory rates, and disrupt feeding and breeding behaviour; a UK/US survey of horse owners found noise-related anxiety a widespread welfare issue, with owners reporting behaviours from sweating and trembling to escape attempts during noisy events. We're not aware of a study measuring this specifically for data centre noise - this is general animal-welfare science we're applying to the local context, not a data-centre-specific finding.
Sources: "The Role of Sound in Livestock Farming - Selected Aspects," PMC; "The Impact of Noise Anxiety on Behavior and Welfare of Horses from UK and US Owner's Perspective," PMC.