Apple could potentially sign a lease for real estate on Dublin's O'Connell Street, establishing its first-ever outlet in the country of Ireland, a report indicated on Friday.
Natrium — a consortium which bought the former Clerys department store at the location for €29 million ($32.6 million) — is trying to pitch Apple on the idea, Independent.ie said. Negotiations have allegedly been ongoing for several months.
Apple told The Irish Times that it has not announced a store for the site, but the company is often secretive about its retail plans until a store is already under construction.
The closure of Clerys in June was extremely controversial, firstly because the store was an iconic fixture of Dublin. Its loss put 460 people out of work, some of whom had been with the company for at least 40 years. Protests arose over the way terminations were handled.
Apple does have a store in Belfast in Northern Ireland, but none in the independent nation, despite it being a focal point of Apple's business. Facilities in and around Cork handle the company's European operations, iMac manufacturing, and international revenue, exploiting Irish loopholes to pay a minimum amount of taxes — something currently the focus of a European Commission investigation. Plans for a datacenter are awaiting approval.
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