Athenry fears on Apple delay

An overwhelming majority of Athenry residents are desperately hoping that Apple’s plans to build a second data centre in Denmark will not put the kybosh on the €850 million one in their town if they win a court challenge at the end of the month.

Word that Apple were fed up with constant delays in the planning process here and would pull out of the project altogether were fuelled by their decision to build another €808 million plant in Denmark. The first one that was built and is due to become operational by the end of this year was announced the same day in February 2015 as Athenry.

Yet the Athenry plant has yet to turn a sod 29 months on. The data centre on a 500-acre site in Coillte woods at Derrydonnell promised to create 300 jobs over multiple phases of construction with 150 technical staff to run it on an ongoing basis.

A spokeswoman for Apple told the Connacht Tribune the company were making no comment on the Athenry project.

Local politician Ciarán Cannon, who is also Junior Minister in the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade with special responsibility for the Diaspora and International Development, said he had spent the last 48 hours consulting with the Industrial Development Authority (IDA) over the issue.

“I don’t think it affects us. My understanding – and it is the IDA’s understanding – that plans are in still in place subject to the decision on the judicial review on July 27.

“And I’m convinced that An Bord Pleanála did their job correctly and that is all the judicial review is assessing – it’s not a rerun of the planning hearing. It’s whether proper procedure was followed.”

He reiterated his belief that this project would have no down sides.

“Denmark currently has 42% of their energy from renewables and they hope to go to 50% by 2020. In Ireland, it’s a fraction of that. Apple have committed over €1m in Ireland to developing renewables, they have a callout at the moment asking for partners.”

He also pointed to Greenpeace’s latest Clicking Green report which praised the company for its continuing leadership in developing data centres powered by 100 percent renewable energy.

See full story in this week’s Connacht Tribune.