Intel's €4 billion FAB lab gets green light

Kildare Country Council in Ireland has granted planning permission for tech giant Intel (Ireland) to build a new manufacturing fabrication (FAB) facility.

To be located north of Dublin in the town of Leixlip, the new development is estimated to cost around €3.5 billion and is part of Intel’s plans to expand its existing Leixlip plant.

If the company goes ahead with its plans, up to 6,000 construction workers would be employed on the project, with a further 1,600 full time jobs being created on completion. In addition, the local council would also be in line to receive around €9.72 million of development contributions from Intel, which would be put to towards public infrastructure.

According to The Journal, the development contributions are one of 34 conditions attached to the planning permission and the scale of the contributions is due to the size of Intel’s proposal.

Intel secured planning permission for phase one of its expansion plan three years ago. 

Kildare County Council granted the 10-year permission despite a small number of objections against the proposal, including one from local farmer, Thomas Reid.

Reid, who lives on a 29 ha farm adjacent to the Inel Leixlip campus, has been a long-time opponent of the company’s Leixlip expansion. In 2015, he won a unanimous Supreme Court ruling against Ireland’s Industrial Development Authority (IDA). The IDA,  which is responsible for attracting and retaining inward foreign investment to Ireland, had issued a Compulsory Purchase Order (its first since 1988) on Reid’s family farm in order to obtain the land for ’some non-specific use’.

Local news sources say it is highly likely there will be appeals against this latest planning decision.