The Dealer is seldom in agreement with Hannah Daly on matters relating to climate change and the environment, but the UCC academic’s recent work on the power-guzzling data centres will certainly resonate with farmers.

While food producers are being hammered on emissions, data centres have been allowed to expand exponentially over the last decade, with their power needs increasing by 23% per year since 2015.

Indeed, such has been the rate of growth that data centres now consume 21% of the country’s electricity and have gobbled up all the additional generation capacity delivered by wind between 2017 and 2023.

Maybe somebody will whisper this uncomfortable fact in Micheál Martin’s ear the next time he rabbits on about the country’s “enterprise culture”.