The High Court has refused an applicant’s request to expand a judicial review concerning a quarry environmental audit into a broader challenge to planning matters spanning about 10 years. It also ordered that most of his third affidavit be struck out.
The proceedings concern Galway County Council’s publication in June 2016 of an environmental audit submitted by Coshla Quarries Limited. The applicant, Brendan Dowling, lives with his family on the road approaching the quarry. The original judicial review, for which leave was granted on 1 September 2016, challenged the Council’s handling of the audit under a planning condition requiring annual records of site traffic and complaints.
The applicant alleged that the audit gave inaccurate information about traffic and omitted complaints he had made. The Council’s position, set out in its opposition, was that it had made no decision accepting the audit’s compliance with the condition and had no role in agreeing its terms. It said its function was to make the audit available for public inspection.
In later affidavits, the applicant raised a wider range of matters, including road safety and other planning issues, and made serious allegations against the Council and individuals. He sought to amend his case to address broader alleged failures to enforce planning conditions and to seek additional orders. The Council applied to strike out his third affidavit, describing its contents as irrelevant and, in part, scandalous.
Justice Ní Raifeartaigh said the original leave concerned the 2016 audit, specifically its account of traffic and the absence of the applicant’s complaints. The proposed changes would introduce a substantially different case, including other road and quarry issues, a lengthy history of planning decisions and different reliefs. The applicant had not provided a sufficient explanation for bringing those matters into the proceedings at that stage. The Court refused the amendment.
The judge then struck out the applicant’s third affidavit of 28 February 2017, except for paragraphs 79 to 87 inclusive and paragraph 88.12. She relied on the Court’s inherent jurisdiction as well as the affidavit rules, and said it was unnecessary to separate material that was irrelevant from material that might be scandalous. The judgment did not determine the underlying allegations about the quarry’s operation or the audit’s accuracy; it addressed the scope of the judicial review and the affidavit motions.