The Supreme Court has refused an application by Tim Doyle, who was not a party to the underlying case, for recordings and transcripts of hearings in a long-running dispute over the School Transport Scheme. The Court said the records would be used to pursue what it described as a “wholly improper and legally unfounded campaign” against people involved in the litigation.
The ruling, delivered on 29 July 2024, concerned hearings on 11 dates since 2013. Doyle is one of two shareholders in Student Transport Scheme Limited. The company’s other shareholder, solicitor Brian Lynch, represented him in the records application. They sought recordings and transcripts at public expense, but Lynch accepted that Doyle was not entitled to publicly funded transcripts and offered to pay for them.
The original case, begun in 2011, claimed that the Minister for Education and Skills should have put the School Transport Scheme, operated by Bus Éireann since 1967, out to public tender. Student Transport lost in the High Court and Court of Appeal. The Supreme Court refused leave to appeal in 2016.
Student Transport later sought to reopen that refusal under the procedure known as a Greendale application, relying on a Comptroller and Auditor General report and European Commission correspondence. The Supreme Court rejected that application in 2021. The Court said the appeal had failed in the Court of Appeal on grounds including that the arrangement was of indefinite duration and was not a written contract. Whether Bus Éireann made a surplus had ceased to matter to the appeal after a later European court ruling.
Doyle and Lynch said they suspected fraud and wanted records to help assess possible proceedings. The Court noted that Lynch accepted he had no evidence of fraud and could not identify a statement by counsel that he could show was untrue. The Court also rejected their interpretation of criminal laws on withholding information and corruption, saying Lynch had not specified an offence that could apply.
The Court said records may generally be made available to a party or non-party seeking them for a legitimate purpose connected with the administration of justice, subject to payment and any opposing argument. In this case, it found access was not in the interests of justice and that granting it would further an abuse of the Court’s process. The application for both recordings and transcripts was refused.