The iPhone maker announced the decision ahead of a supreme court hearing in Dublin on Thursday, when it was due to hear an appeal to overturn the approval of the first phase of the $1bn (£740m) data facility in Athenry, Co Galway.
In a statement, Apple said: “Several years ago we applied to build a data centre at Athenry. Despite our best efforts, delays in the approval process have forced us to make other plans and we will not be able to move forward with the data centre.
“While disappointing, this setback will not dampen our enthusiasm for future projects in Ireland as our business continues to grow.”
The data centre, powered by renewable energy, was due to be used to store European user data and help power online services including the iTunes Store, App Store, iMessage, Maps and Siri for customers across Europe.
It planned to build the centre on a 500-acre site previously used for growing non-native trees. The development, which faced multiple legal challenges but also drew a 2,000-strong march in support of the scheme last year, was due to include an outdoor education space for local schools, a community walking trail and the restoration of native trees.
The company employs more than 5,500 people in Ireland and is completing a new four-storey office building at Hollyhill campus in Cork, its European headquarters.
Ireland’s minister for business, enterprise and innovation Heather Humphreys said: “I very much regret that Apple will not be pursuing its plans to construct a data centre in Athenry, especially as the project would have been a source of significant investment and job creation for Galway and the West of Ireland.”
She said the planning delays “underlined” the government’s need to “make the state’s planning and legal processes more efficient”.
She added: “The government has therefore already been working, over the last number of months, to make improvements to those processes. This will ensure we are better placed to take advantage of future such investment opportunities, whether from data centre providers or other sectors.”
The government is in the process of amending its planning laws to include data centres as strategic infrastructure, to allow them to get through the planning process much more quickly.
Photo: Michael Weber / imageBROKER/REX/Shutterstock
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