{"id":482959,"date":"2026-06-04T16:20:08","date_gmt":"2026-06-04T16:20:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/482959\/"},"modified":"2026-06-04T16:20:08","modified_gmt":"2026-06-04T16:20:08","slug":"high-court-green-light-for-e1-6bn-ennis-data-centre-as-leave-to-appeal-is-refused-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/482959\/","title":{"rendered":"High Court green light for \u20ac1.6bn Ennis data centre as leave to appeal is refused \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

The High Court<\/a> has dismissed an application by opponents of a \u20ac1.6 billion data centre<\/a> for the outskirts of Ennis, Co Clare, for leave to appeal after the court cleared all legal hurdles faced by the project.<\/p>\n

Mr Justice Richard Humphreys, in a 16-page judgment, said further delay would impose uncompensatable financial prejudice and delay on the backers of the data centre.<\/p>\n

The judge said such prejudice needed to be viewed as particularly significant where the project had already been delayed by two years due to the failed High Court proceedings.<\/p>\n

An Coimi\u00fasin Plean\u00e1la<\/a> granted planning permission in April 2024 to Art Data Centres Ltd for the development comprising six data halls over 145 acres of land adjacent to Tulla Road on the eastern side of Ennis, close to junction 13 on the M18 motorway connecting Galway and Limerick.<\/p>\n

Colin Doyle, Friends of the Irish Environment CLG, Futureproof Clare, Martin Knox and Christine Sharp had sought leave to appeal the earlier High Court ruling.<\/p>\n

The judge said no meaningful public interest had been identified in the leave to appeal application and it was not in the public interest that an appeal be launched on the basis of a tendentious mischaracterisation of the trial judgment and\/or a reprogramming of a party\u2019s case by the introduction of new, unpleaded points.<\/p>\n

He said the project had already undergone significant scrutiny at council planner<\/a> level, council management, inspector, commission and High Court level through two modules.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is something inherently implausible from the outset about an argument that seeks to condemn a planning permission as non-climate-consistent, when the developer has gone out of their way to structure the project so as to purchase energy from renewable sources to offset the energy directly used for the development,\u201d the judge said.<\/p>\n

It was no doubt frustrating for the applicants for the leave to appeal \u201cto have their climate arguments cut off at the knees by that response, but ultimately they need to save their forensic protests for a case where a less responsible development has been consented\u201d, he said.<\/p>\n

A spokeswoman for Art Data Centres Ltd said previously that the project will generate substantial employment both during the construction phase and the long\u2011term operational life of the facility \u2013 up to a thousand permanent jobs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The High Court has dismissed an application by opponents of a \u20ac1.6 billion data centre for the outskirts…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":482960,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[75,72,97862,5691,73,61,60],"class_list":["post-482959","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-an-coimisiun-pleanala","tag-business","tag-clare-county-council","tag-data-centres","tag-high-court","tag-ie","tag-ireland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/482959","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=482959"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/482959\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/482960"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=482959"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=482959"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=482959"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}