Planning Permission Extension Granted for Athenry Apple Data Centre

Galway County Council has approved a planning permission extension for tech giants Apple to possibly build a data centre in Athenry.

A five year extension has been added to planning permission previously granted by the council to Apple. Originally the request was for a data centre in Derrydonnell, which would have led to an €850 million project.

Apple scrapped those plans in 2019 and are now set to be seeking a buyer for the site.

The planning permission, initially granted in 2016, was set to expire this September. It has now been extended to November, 2026.

In 2018 Apple announced that they were no longer pursuing plans for the data centre. The court heard the appeal regardless, believing it could have implications regarding future decisions.

Apple says it intends to "identify interested parties" to continue with the project. Its submission says that the construction of a data centre would "strengthen Ireland’s data storage facilities whilst also providing significant and much need investment in County Galway and the western region as a whole."