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File image of a Leisler's bat (or the Irish bat). Alamy Stock Photo

High Court rules that error over single bat should not stop €1.2bn data centre campus for Ennis

Mr Justice Humphreys has stated that the case dismissal ‘is a modest piece of recent legal history’.

THE HIGH COURT has ruled that a report error concerning a bat located in a barn outside Ennis is not sufficient to halt contentious plans for a new 200MW €1.2bn data centre campus.

This follows Mr Justice Richard Humphreys dismissing objectors’ claims that an An Bord Pleanala inspector’s error concerning a bat roost containing a single Leisler’s Bat, who was a resident in March 2022, in a crack in the external wall of a barn shed in farmland near Ennis, Co. Clare should stop the development of the Ennis data centre campus.

In the first line of his 28 page judgement, Mr Justice Humphreys commented: “The Bat in Building 6C could be an episode title in a Scandi Noir series. But it describes our subject here.”

Dismissing the objectors’ grounds over the Leisler Bat, Mr Justice Humphreys described the inspector’s error about the bat on page 74 of the inspector’s report as ‘harmless’.

He said: “A decision should not be quashed for error (including in application of EU law) if the error was harmless and did not materially affect the result.”

An Bord Pleanala granted planning permission for the scheme in April 2024 comprising six data halls covering 145 acres or 1.3m sq ft on lands adjacent to the Tulla Road on the eastern outskirts of Ennis near Junction 13 on the M18 motorway connecting Galway to Limerick.

However, opponents of the data centre, Colin Doyle, Friends of the Irish Environment CLG, Futureproof Clare, Martin Knox and Christine Sharp sought a High Court judicial review of the appeals board permission.

In October, An Bord Pleanala conceded the objectors’ claim for quashing the board’s data centre planning permission where they admitted that the Board erred in law in failing to consider adequately the environmental effects of the proposed development on bat fauna.

However, applicants for the centre, Art Data Centres Ltd contested the appeals board’s High Court judicial review concession to the objectors.

Now in his ruling after a one day hearing in the High Court, Mr Justice Humphreys has stated that the case dismissal “is a modest piece of recent legal history in that no previous developer in the State has succeeded in demonstrating as misconceived an objection that the appeals board was prepared to concede”.

He said: “For a certain type of observer, the fate of a single roost containing a single bat will be viewed as a trivial basis for a debate about the validity of the planning permission. That is perhaps understandable at a superficial level but is a misconception.”

He remarks: “Obviously the issue isn’t trivial if you are the bat. Nor is the protection of species and habitats generally a trivial matter. Nor is compliance with EU law.

He said: “The fact that all parties in the present proceedings, and particularly the developer’s professional and ecological advisers, have concerned themselves so assiduously with the outcome for our bat and its roost shows that, despite everything, as far as the state of civilization in this country is concerned, all is not yet completely lost.”

Mr Justice Humphreys stated the company’s oral submissions utterly demolishes the objectors’ case in just six words: “the potentiality necessarily includes the actuality”.

CEO of Art Data Centres Ltd, Tom McNamara said on Sunday: “ I welcome the court’s decision, it is fundamentally founded in common sense and reason.”

The project will create between 400- 450 permanent jobs when the data centre campus is fully operational with up to 1,200 jobs in construction.

Mr Justice Humphreys has listed the case for next Monday, March 31st to deal with matters arising from his judgement.

In his ruling, Mr Justice Humphreys commented whether, and to what extent, those opposed to the data centre “can make headway on the derogation licence issue or any other issue is for another day and for other parties to join in considering”.

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    Mute ben wu
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    Mar 23rd 2025, 6:23 PM

    Bat something indeed.
    Don’t know where they are getting the 400 to 450 permanent jobs from for a datacentre. Have worked in many any even a quarter of that number is way above normal.

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    Mute P. V. Aglue
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    Mar 23rd 2025, 8:53 PM

    @Luas Vuitton – Penneys Drag Queen: “catch em Derry catch em”

    3
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    Mute Thomas Meaney
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    Mar 23rd 2025, 8:56 PM

    @Luas Vuitton – Penneys Drag Queen: see the future much? Do a course that would enable employment in a DC and make yourself useful.

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    Mute Shelley Keary
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    Mar 24th 2025, 9:48 AM

    @ben wu: hmmm. Thought the same. Is the word “campus” key here though? Maybe it’s technicians and electronic engineers jobs?? I suppose we’ll find out now that the bat is banished

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    Mute ben wu
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    Mar 24th 2025, 1:13 PM

    @Shelley Keary: In my experience..no.
    A datacentre has about 10 full time security (contractors), 1 or 2 cleaning crew (contractors), someone that comes in and does the landscape stuff maybe 2 or 3 times a week, 3 full time building management types, and after that, you have the techie types do the basic networking stuff and replacement of failed hardware.
    You have the types from BT that maintain the network, the types from the Air conditioning side, or service the generators. Those are not full-time jobs.

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    Mute Jb Walshe
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    Mar 23rd 2025, 6:34 PM

    Get Pat Kenny on the case

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    Mute Stephen Foster
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    Mar 23rd 2025, 7:42 PM

    @Jb Walshe: me b()ll!*. It’s Joe Duffy all the way!

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    Mute Chx8mYUb
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    Mar 23rd 2025, 8:15 PM

    @Jb Walshe: quit badgering Kenny . He’s the fourth best presenter of the Late Late Show ,

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    Mute John Moore
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    Mar 24th 2025, 8:33 PM

    @Jb Walshe: He won’t be complicit in the murder of the badger. Like he gives a toss. I wouldn’t mind he goes on about NIMBYS all the time then is the textbook case of one himself.

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    Mute Buster Lawless
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    Mar 23rd 2025, 6:17 PM

    I stand with the BAT!!!! It’s David V Goliath stuff but let’s ” back the bats”

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    Mute Buster Lawless
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    Mar 23rd 2025, 8:58 PM

    @TEc1XNcQ: whoa, there sunshine……. This is all a bit of a can of vipers …… Looks like there’s a lot of skulduggery & cloning & trolling going on here

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    Mute A D
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    Mar 24th 2025, 5:07 AM

    @Buster Lawless: There appear to be two Buster Lawless accounts. One has 6m beside it, as Mary Linton pointed out, and the other has a slightly different shade of blue, both commenting in the same thread. I assume there are two different people.

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    Mute Diarmuid Hunt
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    Mar 24th 2025, 7:17 AM

    @A D: I wouldn’t be so quick to assume that knowing how many accounts are operated by the person behind the Buster Lawless account.

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    Mute The Dog
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    Mar 23rd 2025, 6:36 PM

    Rules for the rich and another for the poor

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    Mute Teresa Joyce
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    Mar 23rd 2025, 7:03 PM

    @The Dog: The poor bat?

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    Mute Thesaltyurchin
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    Mar 24th 2025, 7:47 AM

    @Teresa Joyce: Bata Centre?… I’ll get my coat

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    Mute Tony
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    Mar 23rd 2025, 6:34 PM

    It’s crazy we closed down the peat fired power plants. These data centres burn diesel generators to power themselves, could be peat from the midlands.

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    Mute Jozef Dobias
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    Mar 24th 2025, 7:56 AM

    @Tony: no they don’t. Diesel generators are there for backup power when the grid in the area fail. Like it did during the recent storms. So you and your others can post comments on Journal in darkness. Lol.

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    Mute qffaffaf affrafrfraf
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    Mar 23rd 2025, 6:22 PM

    I’d rather have a bat than another dirty data centre

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    Mute P. V. Aglue
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    Mar 23rd 2025, 8:42 PM

    @qffaffaf affrafrfraf: you’ve dead bats in the water tank in the attic, their turning into fossil fuel when they sink to the bottom

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    Mute Ethan
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    Mar 24th 2025, 2:32 AM

    @qffaffaf affrafrfraf: Silly comment. I think it’s just for likes. You haven’t a clue about anything really.

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    Mute Caroline
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    Mar 23rd 2025, 7:02 PM

    Most expensive bat in Ireland, we don’t need data centres on this scale and if we need them, they should have been fuelled by turf and kept our bogs open, they burn huge quantities of electricity!!

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    Mute Dave Desmond
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    Mar 23rd 2025, 11:45 PM

    @Caroline: lol, the article is focusing on one bat’s habitat and your suggestion is to destroy all our peat lands to fuel data centres instead?

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    Mute Peter Calvey
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    Mar 23rd 2025, 6:41 PM

    Dracula

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    Mute Marius van Niekerk
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    Mar 23rd 2025, 7:23 PM

    Bats are social animals and live in colonies for the most part. Is it a bit of a stretch to assume that a bat found/living by itself is a bat habitat?

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    Mute Del Ray
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    Mar 23rd 2025, 10:13 PM

    @Marius van Niekerk: maybe a depressed bat ?

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    Mute KO
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    Mar 23rd 2025, 6:28 PM

    Like a bat out of hell the data center be gone !!

    143
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    Mute William Jennings
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    Mar 23rd 2025, 6:55 PM

    The Planning Board is nothing more than a racket at this point and they should be abolished. The idea that a single bat could have undermined a data centre that will create hundreds of jobs is a sign that our planning and zoning laws are broken. Insider dealing, conflicts of interest and a labyrinth of bureaucracy makes it near impossible to build new things here in Ireland. Under the current system, even the most minor projects can be held up for years due to appeals by individuals or groups with no real connection to the area. The Planning Board’s excessive willingness to entertain these objections means that much-needed housing, energy and infrastructure projects are stalled indefinitely. It’s a relic of an outdated, anti-growth mentality and it needs to be scrapped immediately.

    59
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    Mute Paul Linehan
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    Mar 23rd 2025, 7:09 PM

    @William Jennings: I do think our planning legislation needs a complete overhaul. We have enough data centres that are using vast amounts of energy that we struggle to generate efficiently at the minute. Supply and demand are the key factors of inflation and it is the domestic consumer that generally pays the price. We need to ensure that all future data centres are energy self sufficient before granting permission to build them.

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    Mute William Jennings
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    Mar 23rd 2025, 7:25 PM

    @Paul Linehan: Data centres are pretty invested in their own energy generation at the moment but I get your point. However, Ireland depends on revenue from multinational corporations. Trump has threatened to put heavy tariffs on the pharmaceutical companies that are based here and we need to make sure that we have a sufficient shield in place. Data centers are integral to the operations of global giants like Google, Microsoft, Amazon and many others. Restricting their development for some arbitrary energy-related justification is shortsighted. By delaying or imposing stringent regulations, Ireland risks losing out on investment and opportunities in an increasingly competitive global digital economy. The government needs to axe the carbon tax and deregulate the energy sector completely.

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    Mute P. V. Aglue
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    Mar 23rd 2025, 8:49 PM

    @Paul Linehan: we have a high over supply of electricity when wind conditions are right. The price of electricity is linked to the commodity price of gas, and not generating capacity.

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    Mute Ronan Mc
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    Mar 23rd 2025, 7:26 PM

    I see Richie took to heart his reprimand from the Court of Appeal for using pop culture references in his judgments.
    I’d say he has a few Kardashian lines in his pocket that he’s itching for an opportunity to slip into a written judgement!

    52
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    Mute Ciaran Murphy
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    Mar 23rd 2025, 7:39 PM

    Humphreys has no love for biodiversity or ecology

    43
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    Mute bruce banner
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    Mar 23rd 2025, 7:05 PM

    Move the bats to the planning office, they couldnt do any worse.

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    Mute Ciaran Hughes
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    Mar 23rd 2025, 10:00 PM

    Common sense rules. People who say no more data centres dim wits..

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    Mute Rian O'Sullivan
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    Mar 23rd 2025, 6:36 PM

    Throw the bat in the fire problem solved.

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    Mute Thesaltyurchin
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    Mar 24th 2025, 12:49 PM

    @Rian O’Sullivan: ah bats are great, just put a few boxes up, thats all this is. incredible how the fly so rapidly and never hit anything

    3
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    Mute John Lee
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    Mar 23rd 2025, 8:56 PM

    There’s still another JR so it’s not in the clear yet. Hopefully gets the final green light. Another few billion injected into Ireland if so

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    Mute Ned
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    Mar 23rd 2025, 9:44 PM

    Ireland has turned into a very strange place

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    Mute jn
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    Mar 24th 2025, 8:02 AM

    in real news county council’s are prioritising planning permission for ipas center’s while locals are denied planning permission left right and centre

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    Mute Hunt Ley
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    Mar 23rd 2025, 11:59 PM

    Finally common sense prevails.
    The excessive environmental requirements are used by NIMBYS and luddites to halt progress.
    Roll on data centres

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    Mute thomas molloy
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    Mar 23rd 2025, 6:48 PM

    Some people deserve poverty.

    7
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    Mute Rian O'Sullivan
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    Mar 23rd 2025, 10:11 PM

    @thomas molloy: And that’s why you have it

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    Mute Jb Walshe
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    Mar 23rd 2025, 9:50 PM

    RIP Meatloaf

    4
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    Mute Thesaltyurchin
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    Mar 24th 2025, 7:46 AM

    Data centres wont ever be a reason to attack Ireland will they?…

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    Mute Robert Halvey
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    Mar 24th 2025, 6:52 AM

    Money Money a ffg appointed judges ,taking it in every hole from the 1%

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    Mute Paul
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    Mar 23rd 2025, 7:15 PM

    That’s bat-sh#t crazy!

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    Mute Oh Mammy
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    Mar 24th 2025, 3:11 AM

    I saw three pangolins in there yesterday

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    Mute Tony Murphy
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    Mar 24th 2025, 9:14 AM

    Another couple of quid on your lecky bill

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    Mute robbie scanlon
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    Mar 24th 2025, 8:06 PM

    As usual money talks

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    Mute Eduardo Vanzulli
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    Mar 24th 2025, 2:56 PM

    Some comment!

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    Mute Paul A Kane
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    Mar 23rd 2025, 9:35 PM

    Holy bat nipples

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