Judge shortage in Ireland delays ruling on Athenry Apple data center location controversy

Once thought to reach a conclusion on June 23, the appeal hearing opposing Apple's Athenry, Ireland efforts has been delayed because of a lack of judges able to hear the case.

Citing "a lack of judges," Irish radio station Galway Bay FM broke the news. The manpower shortage wasn't that transparent, until a six-person delegation from the "Apple for Athenry" advocacy group arrived and found it closed.

The court has not as of yet firmly scheduled the hearing, but the news radio station believes that it will be held before June 30.

Allan Daly is an American-born immigrant and environmental engineer, and has raised multiple objections to the data center. Daly's concerns center around strain on the Irish electrical grid and no apparent plans to cope with greenhouse gas emissions from the data center.

Apple's project was approved by Irish planning councils, but Daly and fellow residents Sinead Fitzpatrick and Brian McDonagh appealed the decision to Ireland's An Bord Pleanala in Sept. 2015. The appeal wasn't granted, forcing Daly to the High Court for review of the case.

Apple's effort isn't the only one in Daly's cross-hairs. Daly is also fighting a $1 billion Amazon data center in Dublin.

The Athenry facility stands to become Apple's second data center in Europe. Viborg, Denmark is the first, and set to go online by the end of the year. It deals with waste heat by pumping it into local homes, while using agricultural waste to generate some of its energy.

7 Comments

xbit 399 comments · 9 Years

About 7 years ago

Maybe if they hadn't entered the race to the bottom on corporation tax they would be able to afford more judges. ;)

SpamSandwich 32917 comments · 19 Years

Awesome. Clearly they are stonewalling the EU on this. They don't want to cooperate and that warms my heart.

randominternetperson 3094 comments · 8 Years

Apple should volunteer to pay for a few new judges, and perhaps provide some nice technology to make them more efficient. That would be a win-win, right?

randominternetperson said:

Apple should volunteer to pay for a few new judges, and perhaps provide some nice technology to make them more efficient. That would be a win-win, right?

Why? There's absolutely no reason to accelerate the timeline on this fraudulent case brought against Apple. The Irish can continue to give the EU the bird and delay, delay, delay.

smiffy31 202 comments · 12 Years

SpamSandwich said:

randominternetperson said:

Apple should volunteer to pay for a few new judges, and perhaps provide some nice technology to make them more efficient. That would be a win-win, right?

Why? There's absolutely no reason to accelerate the timeline on this fraudulent case brought against Apple. The Irish can continue to give the EU the bird and delay, delay, delay.

I suggest that everyone reread the article. It has nothing to do with the EU and the tax problems, it is about the installation of the new data centre and a few locals who are trying to oppose the installation.