Facebook makes new friends with jobs plan

The planning application has only just been lodged but already Facebook’s plan to build a facility in Co Meath is clocking up plenty of ‘likes’.

Hundreds of temporary construction jobs are promised if the €200m development proposed for Clonee is approved, with a full-time operating staff of around 115 expected to move in once the facility is complete.

Facebook representatives formally submitted their application to Meath County Council yesterday afternoon after weeks of speculation.

And while the application has to go through the normal assessments and be open to objections and observations for the usual five-week period, it has already received a warm welcome.

Council chief executive Jackie Maguire said the local authority had worked hard with IDA Ireland to bring Facebook to the county.

“It sends out a clear message to the business community in Ireland and abroad that Meath is open for business,” she said.

Enterprise Minister Richard Bruton, Data Protection Minister Dara Murphy, and Minister for Skills and Research Damien English, who is from Meath, also welcomed the news.

“It is difficult to overstate the impact, in terms of jobs and economic activity this will have on the local area”, said Mr Bruton, who held discussions with senior Facebook executives in recent weeks about the project.

IDA Ireland chief executive Martin Shanahan said: “IDA has been working with the company on its plans and we believe this project has the potential to deliver significant economic impact locally and regionally.”

The facility will be a data centre comprising three buildings, each of 25,400sq metres, which will house tens of thousands of the servers needed to maintain the social media giant’s enormous traffic volumes.

However, while it may be a vote of confidence in the local talent pool, it is an implied criticism of the weather — as Facebook needs overcast climates to help keep its hardworking hardware cool. For that very reason, the company’s only other data centre outside the US is based in northern Sweden, 95km south of the Arctic Circle.

Facebook already employs close to 900 people at its offices in Dublin and as of yesterday, was trying to fill 50 vacancies. With the additional intake in Meath, the Irish facilities will account for a significant proportion of the company’s 10,000- strong worldwide workforce.

Facebook’s director of data centre development, Rachel Peterson, said the company would be engaging with the community in Clonee in the coming weeks.

“Ireland has been a home for Facebook since 2007 and today’s planning application demonstrates our continued interest to invest in Ireland. We hope to build an innovative, environmentally friendly data centre that will help us continue to connect people in Ireland and around the world,” she said.