Major protest to take place in Dublin as part of Europe-wide Day of Action on Data Centres

A protest against data centres will be held in Dublin on Saturday, November 7, as part of a Europe-wide Day of Action on data centres.

The protest will begin at 12pm at the Garden of Remembrance, before moving across the city to the Dáil for 2pm. Protestors will be demanding the government to stop new data centres via a moratorium.

The protest will be led by Friends of the Earth Ireland, the Irish branch of the international non-profit organisation, first established in 1969.

 

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Other groups who have shared their support include An Taisce; BOLD Climate Action; Climate Justice Universities Union; Not Here Not Anywhere; Kildare Data Centre Awareness; Futureproof Clare, and Kilmeadan Against Industrialisation.

Several organisations across Europe are taking part in the Day of Action on data centres, such as Global Action Plan; Green Web Foundation; Leitmotiv; Tu Nube Seca Mí Rio; Spanish Strategic Litigation Group; Data 4 Good; APRS Scotland, and Equinox Initiative for Racial Justice. More groups are expected to join in the coming days.

In a statement on their website, Friends of the Earth Ireland gave their reasons for protesting.

"From the Government deliberately misleading us in their report on data centres to people complaining about the relentless noise emerging from a data centre in their neighbourhood, new reasons to oppose data centres are emerging practically every single day.

They further explain their demands to the Irish government.

"The Government must urgently enact a moratorium on data centres as an urgent climate, energy security and cost-of-living measure. Given nearly a quarter of our electricity already goes to data centres, it’s not clear why we need more data centres and who will benefit other than the Big Tech companies."

A protest against data centres also took place in October during the International AI Summit at RDS Ballsbridge. People Before Profit, Your Tech = Their Deaths, and Pals for Palestine Ireland were among organisations who took part in the demonstration.

In 2025, data centres accounted for 23% of Ireland's overall energy usage, compared to just 5% in 2015. It is estimated that the energy consumption of these centres will grow to almost a third of the national electricity demand by 2030.