The High Court has refused Michael Ryan’s application for a certificate that would allow him to appeal an earlier planning judgment involving Meath County Council and notice party Joseph Connolly.
Mr Justice Max Barrett delivered the judgment on 12 May 2017. The application concerned the court’s December 2016 judgment in *Ryan v Meath County Council* [2016] IEHC 754. Under section 50A(7) of the Planning and Development Act 2000, an appeal under that Act requires the court to certify that its decision involves a point of law of exceptional public importance and that an appeal is desirable in the public interest.
Ryan proposed three questions concerning section 20(3)(q) and changes to zoning in a draft local area plan. They addressed whether that provision applied when elected members considered material alterations; whether it prevented them from rejecting a proposed alteration that would increase land zoned for any purpose; and which land should be used as the comparator under the provision.
The court said Ryan was entitled to disagree with its interpretation of section 20(3)(q)(ii) in the earlier judgment. But it noted that this provision is engaged only where a proposed modification is made to a proposed material alteration. Meath County Council had observed that no such modification was proposed in this case, and Ryan had not disputed that point.
Barrett J said the earlier judgment’s observations on section 20(3)(q)(ii) were therefore obiter, meaning they were not part of the legally binding basis for the decision. He said the binding basis lay elsewhere in the judgment, in findings about the freedom of action retained by elected council members at the meeting challenged by Ryan. As a result, he concluded that no appealable point of law arose from those observations.
The court concluded that none of the three proposed questions arose from its decision and declined to grant the certificate. The ruling concerned permission to appeal; it did not rehear or change the earlier judgment.