Apple pulls out of data center in Athenry due to fcuked up planning and gob****es

marno21

Geuze wrote: »

https://www.rte.ie/news/2018/0510/961458-apple/


2015 Feb = initial announcement
2015 Sep = Galway Co. Co. grants PP with conditions

appealed to ABP

2016 May - oral hearings
2016 Aug - ABP grants permission

After this, it moves from the planning system into the legal system:

Three opponents to the plan – Allan Daly, Sinead Fitzpatrick and Brian McDonagh - bring a court challenge on the basis that An Bord Pleanála failed to carry out a proper Environmental Impact Assessment of the proposed development.


2017 Oct - the High Court supports the ABP decision

More importantly:

RTE wrote:

July 2017 – The company announces that it will spend more than €800m on a second data centre in Denmark.

The first facility at Vibrog - which was announced at the same time as the Athenry site - is nearing completion.

Before Athenry got PP, Denmark had 1 nearly done and #2 on the way. So Athenry could've been followed by Location #2 which we'll never know about.

marno21

lmimmfn wrote: »

It wasnt planned for Dublin so was always going to fail, we apparently want everything in Dublin even though we cant house people there, but still lets have everything in Dublin.

Complete and utter bull****.

This has absolutely nothing to do with Dublin, other than the areas where datacentres were planned and built in Dublin, don't have anti-development fruitcakes waiting to object.

One More Toy

Karen Late Rubber-stamp wrote: »

Tell that to the 100's of thousands of people they employ both directly and indirectly or all the people in school or university hoping to get good jobs of which most are in MNCs.

You haven't a clue.

Oh i have a clue. These jobs are at the expense of our European friends because our quasi-offshore tax haven status is allowed through gritted teeth

weldoninhio

One More Toy wrote: »

Oh i have a clue. These jobs are at the expense of our European friends because our quasi-offshore tax haven status is allowed through gritted teeth

Oh, thanks our European massa’s for “allowing” us use the same tax rules we’ve used for decades. Me boll1x.

nice_guy80

Apple got the site very cheap

It's a rural area beside a small town with a rich medieval heritage
The building would basically have been a giant box

I don't think it should have been granted permission

Doctors room ghost

nice_guy80 wrote: »

Apple got the site very cheap

It's a rural area beside a small town with a rich medieval heritage
The building would basically have been a giant box

I don't think it should have been granted permission

You do realize it wouldn’t have been in the medieval town yeah?the proposed site was roughly half way between Athenry and oranmore in the middle of a good for nothing swamp?doesnt matter now anyway.apple weren’t long getting sick of listening to the paddywhackers.ye can keep yer swamp paddywhackers.well done

machiavellianme

Fann Linn wrote: »

What was so specific to Athenry that perhaps couldn't be afforded to Cork, Dublin, Limerick or even Galway City itself where there are plenty of industrial zoned spaces?

It's pretty simple. There's no more electrical transmission network capacity in Dublin and little to none in Cork. This was a site with two sets of 220kV powerlines nearby so would be able to provide hundreds of Megawatts of power without having to build significant new overhead lines. Building new lines into cities (or anywhere near people) is probably an impossible task.

EdgeCase

lmimmfn wrote: »

It wasnt planned for Dublin so was always going to fail, we apparently want everything in Dublin even though we cant house people there, but still lets have everything in Dublin.

Apple aren't based in Dublin. Their European HQ is in Cork and employs over 6000 people there.

Last time I checked, Cork isn't Dublin.

They should probably have just built the data centre closer to home in Cork City and it would likely have gone ahead without fuss as the city / sorrounds has plenty of history supporting far, far bigger industrial projects than this.

Unfortunately, this is probably going to put a lot investment off going west as there's an established history of this kind of objection.

I mean even look at Galway City. There's no ring road and totally inadequate infrastructure, largely due to a series of endless objections rather than any lack of availability of funds or any unwillingness of national governments to invest over the years.

If you've endless objections to absolutely all development, you can't really expect to see serious investment.

Doctors room ghost

schmittel wrote: »

Brian Mc Donagh from Wicklow on his love of forests:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I7MptWbXAsU

What a ball bag.destroy a forest?its a coillte plantation that will be harvested anyway you ignoramus.hes probably sitting on a timber desk while spouting that horse sh1te.and as for his big idea.what a boll1x.he hadn’t even the brains to film his video out of the glaring sunlight of what appears to be a conservatory.a typical gombeen paddywhacker.

bear1

I wonder now what those 3 gob****es are going to Do? The most hated people in the West I'd imagine.
I'm from Loughrea and even there people were saying that the investment would be massively needed.
Regardless the amount of jobs it would provide they are still jobs.
The fact that any joe soap can appeal anything they want is the biggest load of bollocks this country has when it comes to anything infrastructure.
You just need to look at an taisces record of appealing literally anything over 3 storeys.
Also appealing is free, change that and make it a payable service.
250e min fee per appeal per person. You'd see a lot of appeals stop if it started to cost people money and not the planners.
An taisce also should be banned from appealing anything.

runawaybishop

Geuze wrote: »

Three opponents to the plan – Allan Daly, Sinead Fitzpatrick and Brian McDonagh - bring a court challenge on the basis that An Bord Pleanála failed to carry out a proper Environmental Impact Assessment of the proposed development.

Let's not forget their objection wasn't that apple didn't do an EIS on the proposed development, it was that apple didn't do an EIS on a possible future development. One that they had only mentioned, that didn't have plans not was planning permission being sought. How did the appeal go so far I don't know.

TheAnalyst_

I've a local Athenry contact and he says a gang are going down to Wicklow to McDonaghs house over the weekend.

micosoft

This nonsense about only a few datacentre jobs

• This might be a huge shock but datacentres are updated continuously. 
• It does not account for the 5-10 times direct staff of people employed in support services (air con contractors etc)
• It does not account for building the country as a default hub
• Finally and very importantly as taxation become attached to operations and the ending of boilerplate firms for tax purposes... the increase of Apple Operations in Ireland (many thousands) and Services (from Data Centres) increasingly demonstrates that that value is indeed being created in Ireland.

This is a massive blow to Ireland and people need to be held accountable and fast track planning at a national level demonstrated.

micosoft

This nonsense about only a few datacentre jobs

• This might be a huge shock but datacentres are updated continuously. 
• It does not account for the 5-10 times direct staff of people employed in support services (air con contractors etc)
• It does not account for building the country as a default hub
• Finally and very importantly as taxation become attached to operations and the ending of boilerplate firms for tax purposes... the increase of Apple Operations in Ireland (many thousands) and Services (from Data Centres) increasingly demonstrates that that value is indeed being created in Ireland.

This is a massive blow to Ireland and people need to be held accountable and fast track planning at a national level demonstrated.

micosoft

This nonsense about only a few datacentre jobs

• This might be a huge shock but datacentres are updated continuously. 
• It does not account for the 5-10 times direct staff of people employed in support services (air con contractors etc)
• It does not account for building the country as a default hub
• Finally and very importantly as taxation become attached to operations and the ending of boilerplate firms for tax purposes... the increase of Apple Operations in Ireland (many thousands) and Services (from Data Centres) increasingly demonstrates that that value is indeed being created in Ireland.

This is a massive blow to Ireland and people need to be held accountable and fast track planning at a national level demonstrated.

Doctors room ghost

TheAnalyst_ wrote: »

I've a local Athenry contact and he says a gang are going down to Wicklow to McDonaghs house over the weekend.

Mcdonagh didn’t just want a slice of the apple pie.he wanted the whole thing,the tin it was baked in and the bakery that cooked it.and now he has nothing but he fukd it all up for everyone else.a good for nothing greedy paddywhacker.
As for his love of forests he probably wouldn’t know a spruce tree from a dock leaf.

Boggles

micosoft wrote: »

This is a massive blow to Ireland and people need to be held accountable and fast track planning at a national level demonstrated.

Wow. We have gone out through the collar with the hyperbole.

It is probably a blow to Athenry, how much of a blow, God knows. The screams seem to range from it would have made the town the next Silicon Valley to shure those things only employ 2 and a half people.

What we certainly don't do is go back to "fast track planning at a national level", unless people have turned into complete gold fish, we tried that not so long ago, it was a disaster.

salmocab

lmimmfn wrote: »

It wasnt planned for Dublin so was always going to fail, we apparently want everything in Dublin even though we cant house people there, but still lets have everything in Dublin.

It was objected to by two locals and a guy from Wicklow, somehow blaming Dublin is pathetic. The IDA did their bit so in effect the state did its bit for the area but 2 locals and a guy from elsewhere stopped this happening and the IDA are going to have serious trouble selling Athenry as a destination because when future investors look at the area this is the first thing they will find and they will likely say F that and look elsewhere. This is a mess of a situation but it’s nothing to do with Dublin.

knipex

TheAnalyst_ wrote: »

I've a local Athenry contact and he says a gang are going down to Wicklow to McDonaghs house over the weekend.

Way to overreact..

What about the 2 locals that drove the last appeal ???

TheAnalyst_

knipex wrote: »

Way to overreact..

What about the 2 locals that drove the last appeal ???

They are being "looked after".

Boggles

TheAnalyst_ wrote: »

They are being "looked after".

:pac:

yrreg0850

TheAnalyst_ wrote: »

I've a local Athenry contact and he says a gang are going down to Wicklow to McDonaghs house over the weekend.

The local objectors should be told what the people of Athenry and, indeed Galway think of them for their selfish attitude.
They should also be asked who funded this affair.

bloopy

Boggles wrote: »

Wow. We have gone out through the collar with the hyperbole.

It is probably a blow to Athenry, how much of a blow, God knows. The screams seem to range from it would have made the town the next Silicon Valley to shure those things only employ 2 and a half people.

What we certainly don't do is go back to "fast track planning at a national level", unless people have turned into complete gold fish, we tried that not so long ago, it was a disaster.

The jobs involved would be about 20 full time (majority security) and 10-15 part time (Weekly or bi weekly inspections).

salmocab

bloopy wrote: »

The jobs involved would be about 20 full time (majority security) and 10-15 part time (Weekly or bi weekly inspections).

That’s not even close data centers are manned 24/7 by technicians not dropping by once or twice a week but always in the building plus cleaners, electrical mechanical and controls engineers. Then it needs people to install the racks and maintain them. This was to be a large data centre so would easily have had over 100 people working in it.

Hotblack Desiato

salmocab wrote: »

the IDA are going to have serious trouble selling Athenry anywhere west of the Shannon as a destination because when future investors look at the area this is the first thing they will find and they will likely say F that and look elsewhere. This is a mess of a situation but it’s nothing to do with Dublin.

fyp

wexie

I do wonder how many of the people here commenting on the staffing levels and inner workings of large scale data centers have actually ever been in one

salmocab

wexie wrote: »

I do wonder how many of the people here commenting on the staffing levels and inner workings of large scale data centers have actually ever been in one

I work in a big one

wexie

salmocab wrote: »

I work in a big one

Haha, I gathered you'd at least been in one

yrreg0850

TheAnalyst_ wrote: »

They are being "looked after".

Does the word "Boycott" come to mind.

salmocab

wexie wrote: »

Haha, I gathered you'd at least been in one

Been in a few, they range from small buildings in an industrial estate with one tech and one security up to large campasses with a couple of hundred staff. This Apple one was at the upper end from what I understand.
Even local takeaways do well out of these as night shift workers like to eat hot and generally can’t leave once their shift starts.

mikemac2

Sure it was the west of Ireland that gave boycott to the world

Have the two locals tried getting served in the petrol station or pub yet?

runawaybishop

bloopy wrote: »

The jobs involved would be about 20 full time (majority security) and 10-15 part time (Weekly or bi weekly inspections).

The numbers given were between 100 and 150. Even if it was 20 its not like the area has an excess of jobs.

It also discourages other companies from setting up in the locality.

Rechuchote

The Danes did better. In Ireland, we object, object, object; the Danes seem to have bargained so that Apple actually offered the community an advantage:

https://news.vice.com/en_us/article/vbzng8/one-man-in-a-tiny-irish-town-could-derail-apples-plans-for-europe

In Denmark, for example, where Apple’s other European data center is almost ready to come online, the company was required to install a waste-heat recovery system that will use the huge amount of heat generated by the servers to heat homes in the community. The data center will also be partly powered by recycling waste products from nearby farms. In Seattle, Amazon has already demonstrated the feasibility of a waste-heat recovery system to power its own offices. In California, Google collects rainwater to cool its servers.

As for the question of jobs - of course a potential 450 jobs, 150 of these "permanent and pensionable" as the old saying goes - would make an enormous difference to a small town like Athenry; it would save farms, prevent breakup of families, provide custom to the shops, result in new businesses being founded to serve the population, bring huge prosperity into the place.

Back in the 1980s a Clare sculptor started a project to move unemployed people and their families to the depleted south Clare from Dublin's inner city. He said a single unemployed person was worth - at that time - £2,000 to a village, between the person's dole, the children's value to emptying schools, and visits from friends and relatives, the overflow of whom would stay in local B&Bs, and who would shop in local shops. Money follows money.

Such a shame the local politicians in Athenry didn't bargain with Apple as the Danes did.

Boggles

salmocab wrote: »

That’s not even close data centers are manned 24/7 by technicians not dropping by once or twice a week but always in the building plus cleaners, electrical mechanical and controls engineers. Then it needs people to install the racks and maintain them. This was to be a large data centre so would easily have had over 100 people working in it.

Whatever the true number is, even taken the highest estimate it is still relatively small combined with the fact it's the expressed goal of the tech companies to eliminate humans from them all together.

At the end of the day, this is only a story because Apple are involved. I have seen multiple supermarkets denied planning over the last decade, they would have offered similar staffing levels and would be far better for the economy locally than any massive ware house full of disks.

I don't ever remember Leo flying over to Germany to give "assurances" to the head of Aldi because of them.

There has been a massive over action to this from the top down.

Our love for Apple appears to have no bounds.

EdgeCase

machiavellianme wrote: »

It's pretty simple. There's no more electrical transmission network capacity in Dublin and little to none in Cork. This was a site with two sets of 220kV powerlines nearby so would be able to provide hundreds of Megawatts of power without having to build significant new overhead lines. Building new lines into cities (or anywhere near people) is probably an impossible task.

Where are you getting that from?
There are multiple 220kV lines serving all sorts of areas around Cork and Dublin both overhead and underground. Not to mention that both areas have huge generation capacity.

They're not planning to put data centres in Patrick Street or Stoneybatter. If something like that were going in either city it would be on the outskirts, likely in an industrial / tech park like Sandyford or Little Island. All of those areas are extensively well provisioned for power.

Apple tend to pick obscure locations because they don't want their data centres to be obvious also the IDA was also probably trying to push jobs into the West and incentives were offered.

Logically it's far easier to locate these things somewhere where infrastructure is easier and planning is easier.

http://smartgriddashboard.eirgrid.com/#all/transmission-map

Ubbquittious

Boggles wrote: »

Our love for Apple appears to have no bounds.

The TD's are down on their prayer mats before Apple and Google the whole time because they think it's essential that they have Apple and Google's name up on the door of the country in order to attract any other tech company.

Tbh if they don't want to employ anyone and don't want to pay any tax we're better off growing turnips in the bit of land they would otherwise take up. The whole economic argument goes out the window when they're trying to as hard as they can to employ as few people as possible.

salmocab

Every business is trying to employ as few as possible, that’s why SuperValu has self scan and you pump your own petrol. We’re getting into general Ludd territory if we want to turn our noses up at jobs purely based on not enough physical jobs and too much machinery. Just like in the industrial revolution as jobs went new things came along.

wexie

Rechuchote wrote: »

Such a shame the local politicians in Athenry didn't bargain with Apple as the Danes did.

We don't know if they did or not do we?

Either way wouldn't have made one sod of a difference considering 3 individuals decided to put a stop to this

EdgeCase

I'd suspect that with Brexit pending, and this data centre would probably have been serving customers in the UK as well as elsewhere in Europe, they'll probably just put one in Britian.

Opportunity lost.

Also there's not much point in local politicians bargaining with anyone. They've no input into that aspect of the planning process. It was gone to court appeals, which were very slow.

Apple isn't going to be able to sit for 5 years thinking about this. They need to respond to demand for services quite quickly. It's pretty clear that wasn't going to happen.

Multi year court appeals processes aren't really feasible to deal with when you need something to be up and running asap.

The planning appeals process here is simply far too slow. It should be possible to get something like this done within a reasonable time frame. This project was announced in 2015.

Ubbquittious

salmocab wrote: »

Every business is trying to employ as few as possible, that’s why SuperValu has self scan and you pump your own petrol. We’re getting into general Ludd territory if we want to turn our noses up at jobs purely based on not enough physical jobs and too much machinery. Just like in the industrial revolution as jobs went new things came along.

There is just no compelling reason anymore to let these companies come in and have free reign if there are no jobs and no tax to be had from it. You could see in a few years after the datacentre is built that Apple will be parping their own horn for having a datacentre with 0 people employed in it.

Pkiernan

These objectors should be boycotted by every person, shop, hotel and service provider in the State until they f#ck off out of Ireland.

This has huge implications on FDI.

salmocab

Ubbquittious wrote: »

There is just no compelling reason anymore to let these companies come in and have free reign if there are no jobs and no tax to be had from it. You could see in a few years after the datacentre is built that Apple will be parping their own horn for having a datacentre with 0 people employed in it.

But your the one that decided there will be 0 jobs in it, you’ve basically decided something and are now arguing it as fact. That place would have supplied over 100 jobs, that’s a fact. Having Apple there would probably have drawn in in the long term other businesses attracted by the infrastructure improvements and the proximity to the city along with rents that don’t cost city prices.
I don’t know Athenry at all so I can’t say if this was a good or bad place for it or if it would have destroyed the area but I know enough about data centers to be able to say there would be jobs and a good mix of well paid tech rolls and lower paid non technical rolls.

Doctors room ghost

Ubbquittious wrote: »

There is just no compelling reason anymore to let these companies come in and have free reign if there are no jobs and no tax to be had from it. You could see in a few years after the datacentre is built that Apple will be parping their own horn for having a datacentre with 0 people employed in it.

More of the paddywhackery.everyone would have benefited from the build.material supplies,labor,local shops,garages etc etc but the paddywhacker prefers the paranoia route.
Ffs

Ubbquittious

Doctors room ghost wrote: »

More of the paddywhackery.everyone would have benefited from the build.material supplies,labor,local shops,garages etc etc but the paddywhacker prefers the paranoia route.
Ffs

Jeez when you see new articles every day on well known tech sites about how said megacorps are trying to replace everyone and anything with automated AI bots it's hard not to be cynical.

Even that aside the whole economic argument is usually exaggerated with anything. Whether it's a festival coming to town or a company setting up shop you'd swear by the auld talk that the locals will never see another poor day but the reality is often far from it.

runawaybishop

Ubbquittious wrote: »

There is just no compelling reason anymore to let these companies come in and have free reign if there are no jobs and no tax to be had from it. You could see in a few years after the datacentre is built that Apple will be parping their own horn for having a datacentre with 0 people employed in it.

Electricity isn't free, the land isn't free, its not constructed for free. Only a moron would believe that we shouldn't attract business into the country.

Kamili

Hector Savage wrote: »

Can't imagine they'd be close to carbon neutral ?

They consume MASSIVE amounts of power the air conditioning alone is a killer ...

The point of having it in Ireland is to prevent the use of air conditioning - this process is known as free air cooling, due to the temperatures we have here. Servers actually don't need silly low temperatures to function and by using evaporative cooling they can use far less power to cool air which is actually already cool enough in our climate anyway. The issue for us is actually freezing temperatures, and heating the air.

I've heard people in the US come here and comment on how much they spend cooling the air in their data-centers to temperatures our climate gives us naturally.

https://books.google.ie/books?id=FKfBBAAAQBAJ&pg=PA55&lpg=PA55&dq=Google+free+air+cooling+Ireland&source=bl&ots=JjhrGOJWNx&sig=5fiH8Un3IBhSOqwEkqI04WOtLaU&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjqpayWyv3aAhWGCMAKHWIJCbEQ6AEIggEwDQ#v=onepage&q=Google%20free%20air%20cooling%20Ireland&f=false

Rechuchote

EdgeCase wrote: »

I'd suspect that with Brexit pending, and this data centre would probably have been serving customers in the UK as well as elsewhere in Europe, they'll probably just put one in Britian.

Scarcely - with Britain getting out of Europe, won't that mean tariffs hitting everything in Britain?

As for all the pitchforks about going after the people who objected, did any of those pitchfork-holders make an observation (€20) on the Apple plan approving it? No? Didn't think so. You could have; if you care that much about it, keep your eye on future planning applications by multinationals as the objectors do.

I still think it would have been much more to the point that the local councillors and TDs, and also the Ministers for Communications, Climate Action and Environment and for Business, Enterprise and Innovation should have been in there talking to Apple and asking them to provide heating to the local population and to use solar PV panels, etc… They should also have been talking to the Danes and sharing strategies and tactics.

Ubbquittious

Rechuchote wrote: »

Scarcely - with Britain getting out of Europe, won't that mean tariffs hitting everything in Britain?

As for all the pitchforks about going after the people who objected, did any of those pitchfork-holders make an observation (€20) on the Apple plan approving it? No? Didn't think so. You could have; if you care that much about it, keep your eye on future planning applications by multinationals as the objectors do.

I still think it would have been much more to the point that the local councillors and TDs, and also the Ministers for Communications, Climate Action and Environment and for Business, Enterprise and Innovation should have been in there talking to Apple and asking them to provide heating to the local population and to use solar PV panels, etc… They should also have been talking to the Danes and sharing strategies and tactics.

Indeed credit to the Danes to at least ensure some lasting benefits for the locals if they decide to replace the couple of workers with AI bots. The auld dopey TD's and "Cllr"s over here would never do that because it would amount to interfering with the sacred free market and they're happy to settle for a photo-op with Tim Cook in the local rag along with some paragraph filled with false hope for jobs.

EdgeCase

The issue with Brexit is that it may no longer be possible to serve the UK from outside the UK, due to either tarrif barriers or regulatory issues. So I could see Apple taking the opportunity to pause anyway.

We have no idea what the EU-UK relationship may be in 12 months time. The whole thing is still in a state of complete political nonsense in Britian and there's still no idea what's happening.

Boggles

salmocab wrote: »

That place would have supplied over 100 jobs, that’s a fact.

Ah no now.

That's an opinion, yours.

It could be 150 jobs, it could be 95 jobs, it could be 30 jobs.

That's my opinion.

Again though, neither are facts.