Courts / Ireland / Report

School reopening actions to be telescoped

Summary

In a High Court hearing, five judicial review actions challenging the Minister for Education's decision not to reopen schools for pupils with special educational needs were agreed to proceed by way of a telescoped hearing. This means the applications for permission to bring the challenges and the challenges themselves will be heard together by the same judge, Mr Justice Charles Meenan. Derek Shortall SC, representing the applicants, said the matter is extremely urgent and hoped the court would hear two lead cases rather than all five. Catherine Donnelly SC, for the respondents, said the State needed time to reply and that fixing a hearing date was premature. Mr Justice Meenan directed the State to file its reply within a week and adjourned the matter for a week, after which a hearing date would be fixed. The actions were brought on behalf of five school‑going children with special needs, who cannot be identified for legal reasons.

Who, what, where, when and why

What: Report matter: School reopening actions to be telescoped. Procedural stage: hearing_or_decision

When:

• January 19th Hearing Or Sentence
• January 21st Other
• 2021-02-01 Publication

Why: When the cases were mentioned before Mr Justice Charles Meenan at the High Court on Monday morning, Derek Shortall SC for the applicants said it had been agreed that in order to save time, the actions could proceed by way of a telescoped hearing. CNI source report

Places mentioned

Topics

Stage Hearing Or Decision

Read the original CNI report