Kildare residents don't want a data centre next door to them
The site occupies 135 acres and backs on to a housing estate
A campaign has been launched to have data centre zoning removed from an area in Naas.
According to former councillor Sorcha O’Neill the residents want the zoning changed on the site which occupies 54.55-hectares (135 acres) at Jigginstown - before a planning application can be lodged for it.
The site backs onto Primrose Garden residential area and has been zoned for a data centre since the Naas Local Area Plan 2021-2027 was adopted.
Ms O’Neill, a former Sinn Féin councillor, says the site is is around seven times the area of Croke Park's stadium footprint, and larger than the neighbouring site that has already been granted planning permission by Kildare County Council in August 2025 for a €3 billion six-building, gas-powered data centre campus in the townlands of Halverstown, Jigginstown and Newhall, Naas, near the M7 business park - in the name of Herbata.
This proposal was opposed by An Taisce, Friends of the Earth Ireland, Friends of the Irish Environment, Newhall Residents Group and individual local residents. The decision is currently under appeal to An Bord Pleanala, lodged by both the developer and third-party objectors.
"The lesson from this is that once land is zoned exclusively for one use, the principle of that development is treated as already decided," said Ms O'Neill, spokesperson for the campaign.
"Kildare County Council's own planning report for Herbata said there was no alternative to consider, because the zoning ruled everything else out. Every objection could only argue about design details, not about whether a data centre belonged there at all. That's why we're focused on changing the zoning for the site near Primrose Garden now, while there's still time - not on fighting an application after it's already been lodged."
The campaign wants Naas councillors to commence the process to alter the zoning when they return in September.
Ms O’Neill says the campaign also wants the councillors to publicly commit to opposing the designation of any further land for data centre use in the Naas area and its environs in future local area plans or development plans in the absence of “compelling new evidence to the contrary.”
The group says data centres now account for 23% of Ireland's metered electricity, up from 5% in 2015; the Commission for Regulation of Utilities has tightened its policy on new data centre grid connections over security-of-supply concerns and Ireland's carbon budgets have become significantly tighter.
"We want to be clear that this isn't an anti-technology campaign," said Ms O'Neill.
"We're not against data centres as such. We're against a development of this scale, this close to people's homes, on land that could support a broader range of employment uses with less strain on water, gas and the electricity grid.”
She said a zoning change doesn't block development on this land - it just stops one narrow, high-impact use being the only option the KCC is allowed to consider.