The High Court has struck out James Kenny’s long-running planning enforcement proceedings concerning Trinity College Dublin’s student residence development at Trinity Hall on Dartry Road, Rathmines.
Kenny began the case in July 2002 under section 160 of the Planning and Development Act 2000, which allows the court to make orders against unauthorised development. The Trinity Hall scheme had received planning permission from An Bord Pleanála in August 2000, with later compliance submissions approved by Dublin City Council in January 2002.
Kenny separately challenged that compliance decision through judicial review. The High Court rejected that case in 2004 and the Supreme Court dismissed his appeal in March 2009. Trinity College then asked the High Court to strike out the remaining section 160 proceedings.
Mr Justice Feeney found substantial overlap between the two cases. Complaints concerning boiler rooms, changes to roof pitch and profile, increased bed spaces in Building 2 and the reduction in height of Building 3 had already been considered and rejected by the Supreme Court. Allowing those matters to be argued again would amount to an abuse of process.
The Supreme Court had identified one literal breach concerning the laying of services within ten metres of trees required to be retained. However, it described that breach as minor or trivial. Feeney J. held that, with the development completed and no practical benefit available to Kenny or the public, that discrepancy could not justify a full enforcement hearing on its own.
The court also refused to permit Kenny to expand the case with additional complaints concerning Building 1, alleged environmental assessment deficiencies, summer use of accommodation, an ESB substation and fraud. Those matters had either arisen years earlier, were already covered by other decisions, had ceased, or were now authorised.
The proceedings against Trinity College were therefore struck out under the High Court’s inherent jurisdiction to prevent repetitive, unnecessary and abusive litigation.