Irish court rejects appeal against Apple data center, clearing legal hurdles

The Irish High Court has tossed an appeal of a ruling in favor of Apple's Athenry data center, in theory removing the final legal obstacle towards the project's construction.

There were no grounds for an appeal, the court ruled on Wednesday according to Reuters. In mid-October, residents Allan Daly and Sinead Fitzpatrick requested a certificate, looking to once again challenge the data center on environmental issues.

Daly, an environmental engineer, has often been at the center of opposition and voiced concerns about things like greenhouse gas emissions and the potential for overloading the Irish power grid. Apple has dismissed any such worries.

The company originally announced plans for Irish and Danish data centers in Feb. 2015. While the Irish center was expected to be Apple's first in Europe, legal opposition has so far prevented construction from even starting. Instead the Danish center is already nearing completion.

Some other residents of Athenry have rallied around Apple, arguing that the data center will help raise the local economy despite creating relatively few full-time jobs.

7 Comments

rob53 3307 comments · 13 Years

About 7 years ago

From the looks of the renderings, I see a lot of grounds maintenance type work during the growing season and probably road clearing work during the winter months. No, that's not the high-paid IT jobs governments really want to see (so they can collect income taxes) but from what I've read, I don't see it being a drain on the local economy either.

jbdragon 2312 comments · 10 Years

rob53 said:

From the looks of the renderings, I see a lot of grounds maintenance type work during the growing season and probably road clearing work during the winter months. No, that's not the high-paid IT jobs governments really want to see (so they can collect income taxes) but from what I've read, I don't see it being a drain on the local economy either.

That's still a lot of Property Taxes which will be high as the value has gone up quite a bit. A few higher skill jobs and some maintenance and landscaping jobs. So it's still money coming into the community.

Rayz2016 6957 comments · 8 Years

“Overload the Irish power grid”?

Is the Irish power grid fuelled by pedalling leprechauns?

gregg thurman 456 comments · 16 Years

Rayz2016 said:

“Overload the Irish power grid”?

Is the Irish power grid fuelled by pedalling leprechauns?

No, but the Irish economy is being held back by exported US NIMBY's (Not In MY Back Yard).

phone-ui-guy 1018 comments · 18 Years

What I don't understand about the argument is that with Apple having a data center there, it will improve the power grid. Apple will demand reliable power and fixes to the local grid including having enough local sustainable sources of power to run the facility. Don't forget about the security jobs, jobs for whatever sustainable power solutions are added, etc. It does add up.