The Commercial Court with jurisdiction over County Galway in western Ireland recently dismissed two cases, clearing the way for Apple to take the next steps in developing a group of data centres planned for the county. Apple will spend upwards of €850 million (£762 million) to build the 8-facility campus. New reports say that two law suits were brought against the project after the local Board gave its permission back in August. Commercial Court justice Paul McDermott rejected the lawsuits on different grounds. Apple may now proceed, though there is still no guarantee that the data centres will be built. Other hurdles will have to be cleared.

Local Objections

The first lawsuit to challenge Apple's plan was brought by a local couple whose home is located near the proposed site. They claimed that Apple failed to carry out a proper environmental impact assessment, making the original Board decision invalid. Justice McDermott disagreed. The second case was brought by another local resident who believed that proper planning procedures were not being followed. The plaintiff claimed to not be opposed to Apple's plans per se, he was just convinced that there were some planning procedure issues. Apple maintained that the plaintiff had made no submissions to the Galway County Council in opposition to the project, nor had he appealed to the local Board. The Commercial Court sided with Apple.

Big Plans by Apple

Since the project was first proposed, Apple has had big plans for Galway. They have maintained all along that building the new data centres will add hundreds of jobs to the local area while also helping to meet the growing demand for data processing and storage in Ireland. Apple has not detailed exactly what they plan to do with the data centre, but it is not beyond the realms of possibility to assume it could be a very important data processing hub for the British Isles, if not most of Western Europe. Some news reports have speculated that Apple wants to use the new facilities to power everything from the iTunes Store to iMessage throughout Europe. Irish Minister for community development Seán Kyne greeted the Commercial Court ruling with delight, calling it “very positive news for Galway and the West of Ireland.” He and some 4,000 local members of an Apple Facebook page are encouraged by the ruling, especially given that the project has been delayed numerous times over the past two years. It is understandable that there are objections whenever a data centre of this size is proposed. However, the courts have to be very careful about ruling based on public opinion. The digital world is expanding exponentially with every passing quarter and we are going to need a lot more data centres in the very near future to keep up with demand. Unless the world is ready to go back to the pre-digital era, both consumers and courts have to be willing to allow data centres to be built. Source:  http://www.independent.ie/business/irish/apple-get-goahead-to-build-data-centre-in-athenry-36220312.html