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

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”.