Apple's €850 million (£724 million) Irish data centre is now one step closer to becoming a reality after a court in Ireland dismissed a request for a judicial review from someone that lives over 100 miles away from the proposed facility.
The Court of Appeal in Ireland said this week that it will not be considering the views of Brian McDonagh, who lives in Wicklow, which is on the east coast of Ireland.
The court ruled that McDonagh — who has been trying to get other US tech giants to build data centres in Ireland — did not have significant grounds for appeal, according to Connacht Tribune.
McDonagh, managing director of Ecologic Datacenters, has "no connection whatsoever with Athenry," a local source told Business Insider.
Apple first announced the data centre in February 2015, saying at the time that it will build a similar facility in Denmark, which is already well underway.
Galway County Council gave Apple permission to build the facility in September 2015 but a number of locals objected to Irish planning body An Bord Pleanála. After reviewing the objections, An Bord Pleanála gave the development the green light last August.
Apple asked the High Court at the start of November to fast-track the legal challenge brought about by the three individuals.
The two remaining objectors — Allan Daly and Sinead Fitzpatrick — will still have their cases against Apple's data centre heard by Ireland's High Court. The final hearing is on March 23 and locals told Business Insider that they expect a decision to be made up to three weeks after that.
The data centre — set to be built on a 197-hectare site near Athenry on the west coast of Ireland — would be used by Apple to store European user data and to help power online services including the iTunes Store, the App Store, iMessage, Maps, and Siri for customers across Europe, according to a press release announcing the development.
