Objector fails to stop €1bn Amazon data centre

AN opponent of Apple’s stalled plans for an €850m data centre in Galway has failed to prevent online giant Amazon securing planning permission for the first phase of its planned €1bn data centre in north Dublin.

This follows An Bord Pleanála dismissing the appeal lodged by Athenry-based engineer Allan Daly and giving Amazon’s Irish firm, Amazon Data Services Ireland Limited (ADSIL), the green light for the data centre.

Amazon currently employs 2,500 here and the company’s web services division already has a number of data centres in Dublin, but its Mulhuddart plan is its most ambitious to date in Ireland.

ADSIL plans to initially build a 223,000 sq ft data centre and has told Fingal County Council it might build seven more data centres on the 26-hectare IDA-owned site.

Recommending that planning be granted, senior planning inspector with the appeals board John Desmond said in his 120-page report that the provision of such major digital infrastructure “must surely be viewed positively”.

In support of the plan, the IDA told the appeals board that it views data centre facilities and infrastructure as crucial to Ireland’s ongoing competitiveness as a global location.

The intervention, by Mr Daly and Dublin-based architect David Hughes in lodging the appeals in April of last year against the decision by Fingal County Council giving the plan permission, has delayed the