The Supreme Court has dismissed an application by opponents of a 200MW €1.6 billion data centre on the outskirts of Ennis for leave to appeal against a High Court decision, clearing all legal hurdles faced by the project.
In its determination, the Supreme Court has dismissed the three grounds put forward in the application by opponents of the data centre, namely Colin Doyle, Friends of the Irish Environment CLG, Futureproof Clare, Martin Knox and Christine Sharp.
The Supreme Court found the application did not meet the constitutional threshold required for leave to be granted to appeal the High Court upholding the planning permission granted by An Coimisiún Pleanála (ACP) to Art Data Centres Ltd.
In its determination, the Supreme Court found that “no point of general public importance arises” in the grounds put forward by the appellants.
RM Block
ACP granted planning permission in April 2024 to Art Data Centres Ltd comprising six data halls covering 145 acres or 1.3 million sq ft on lands adjacent to the Tulla Road on the eastern outskirts of Ennis near Junction 13 on the M18 motorway connecting Galway to Limerick.
The project is set to generate up to 1,200 jobs during construction, and up to a 1,000 permanent jobs and the underpinning of thousands more in digital industries.
On Monday, the joint founders of Art Data Centres, Tom McNamara and Vincent Fogarty, said the ruling “recognises that there is a future for environmentally-sensitive data centre developments like ours, where there is responsible use of renewable energy, grid-supporting generation technology and heat-recycling for both agri-food and local heating schemes”.
They described the Supreme Court ruling as “great news for this data centre campus and for Clare as the project will be a key pillar of the Ennis 2040 Economic Plan for the area”.
The project’s 200MW scale “will be attractive to the largest technology partners in the world and the project represents the culmination of more than ten years of preparatory work”, they said.
They said the connection applications could be finally processed following the Supreme Court ruling “and work will commence in 2027 as soon as all is in place”.
