The High Court has struck out a further case brought by Colum Browne over the MFV Áine Íde, ruling that it amounted to an impermissible attempt to reopen an earlier challenge to the vessel’s re-measurement.
Mr Browne issued the proceedings in 2017 after the Registrar General of Fishing Boats began processing a Capacity Assignment Note transferring permitted tonnage attached to the vessel to Bank of Ireland under a fixed charge. He initially sought an injunction stopping that process, but withdrew that application in November 2018.
The central issue, however, dated back much further. The Áine Íde had originally been registered at 65.5 feet. In 2003 the Marine Service Office re-measured it at 63.79 feet. That moved the vessel from the over-65-foot fishing category to the under-65-foot category, with consequences for licensing and later quota allocations.
Mr Browne had already challenged that re-measurement in proceedings begun in 2012. The High Court dismissed that case because the public-law challenge had been brought outside the time limit for judicial review. The Court of Appeal upheld that decision and the Supreme Court refused leave to appeal.
In the present case, Mr Browne argued that the earlier proceedings had never determined whether the re-measurement was actually lawful, that the alleged breach was continuing and that the earlier courts had been misled because certain statutory instruments were not brought to their attention.
Mr Justice Rory Mulcahy rejected each argument. He held that a final ruling that an administrative challenge is out of time prevents the same decision being attacked through fresh proceedings. The continued effects of the 2003 measurement did not turn it into a continuing breach.
The judge also found no basis for alleging fraud or a fundamental denial of justice in the earlier proceedings. The statutory instruments relied upon were not relevant to the earlier time-limit ruling.
The proceedings were struck out as an abuse of process. The judge provisionally indicated that the State defendants should receive their costs.