‘Unreasonable’ for Apple decision at this stage

The chief of the IDA has said it was still up to Apple whether or not to build its much delayed €850m data centre at Athenry, and it was “unreasonable” for the tech giant to commit at this stage before planning appeals have been exhausted.

‘Unreasonable’ for Apple decision at this stage

The chief of the IDA has said it was still up to Apple whether or not to build its much delayed €850m data centre at Athenry, and it was “unreasonable” for the tech giant to commit at this stage before planning appeals have been exhausted.

Martin Shanahan also said data centres could provide significant levels of employment in rural areas and be a catalyst to provide many more jobs if multinationals base global engineering hubs and designate their Irish bases as the main European centres to comply with new EU rules on data protection — regulations which come into force later this year.

Amid planning objections, Apple boss Tim Cook failed late last year to provide a definitive commitment to Taoiseach Leo Varadkar it would build in the Co Galway town despite confirming plans to build a second data centre in Denmark. Critics have questioned the value for money for the State because data centres consume a lot of power and employ relatively few people compared with the capital invested in the projects.

But speaking to reporters alongside Business Minister Heather Humphreys on the IDA’s year-end results, Mr Shanahan said the current status is that Apple continues to consider Athenry for its future plans but still faces an appeal in the whole planning process, which has taken an “extraordinarily” long time.

“I think it would be unreasonable to expect the company to commit to something that isn’t concluded. And even when it is concluded… they will have to reassess how it fits with their future business plans,” said the IDA CEO.

IDA hailed reaching its “highest level” employment level at almost 210,450 jobs, meaning one in 10 in the workforce is now employed directly by a multinational, while many thousands more indirectly rely on foreign-owned firms for their livelihood. The number of IDA- assisted jobs increased by over 19,850 in 2017, but job losses in the year meant there was almost 10,685 net jobs created.

The IDA said it was ahead of targets in its multi-year plan but conceded that it could do more to strike a better balance between Dublin and some other regions.

At the end of 2017, at 101,222, just under half of all IDA-linked jobs were in the Dublin and Mid-East region, with the South-West having the second largest number of jobs, at almost 37,435. The West had 23,286 jobs; the Mid-West 17,787; and the South-East, which has almost 14,920, increased IDA-jobs at the fastest rate last year. The Border and Midlands, which posted the smallest percentage increases in IDA employment in 2017, have almost 11,470 and 4,330 jobs, respectively.

On Brexit, Mr Shanahan said there was a sufficient supply of offices in Dublin to meet demand but residential housing was “a challenge” for Ireland, as it was for many other countries. He said its Brexit campaign was going reasonably well but was yet to be reflected in jobs “on the ground”, as financial services, pharmaceutical, and tech firms, prepare to make announcements in the coming months.

The IDA now designates the UK as a separate market, which Mr Shanahan characterised as “a practical” arrangement. On the US corporate tax cuts, Mr Shanahan said the US rate was still significantly above Ireland’s and the effects of the cuts may not be as significant as some had feared.

He said the IDA awaited the EU’s plans for European digital tax later this year.

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