The 100-Year Life Health Education and Government
Ireland’s high court has ruled that a planning inspector’s reporting error over a single bat cannot stop the construction of a €1.2 billion data centre.
The failure to consider a single Leisler’s bat, a protected species, in a barn on the site was a “harmless” error, the judgment found.
The row over the Clare data centre is not new. There has been a back and forth between environmentalists, the data centre applicants and Ireland’s planning appeal board since the board initially granted planning permission in April 2024.
Later this year a second hearing will look at whether planners properly assessed the environmental impact of the facility.
Opponents are concerned about the amount of water the 200MW plant would use, as well as its emissions and impact on biodiversity.
Ireland’s power-hungry data centres consumed 21 per cent of the country’s electricity in 2023, an increase of 20 per cent between 2022 and 2023.
