The High Court has found that continuing excavation at a County Galway quarry was unauthorised development, but declined to grant an injunction sought by An Taisce to stop it.
Mr Justice Max Barrett ruled on 8 November 2016 that substitute consent granted to McTigue Quarries Limited and Gary and Caroline McTigue regularised earlier quarrying and allowed specified remedial or restorative work. It did not authorise continuing or future quarry development, which required separate planning permission.
An Taisce brought the proceedings under section 160 of the Planning and Development Act 2000. The court said no assessment of future works was recorded, and the substitute consent’s conditions addressed remedial or restorative work rather than ongoing site development. It found that the respondents’ excavation was therefore unauthorised. The judge said it was unnecessary to decide whether the respondents had breached the substitute consent.
The respondents had argued that An Taisce’s case improperly challenged earlier planning decisions, including a 2007 quarry registration, a 2012 decision that the quarry began operating before 1 October 1964, and the 2015 grant of substitute consent. The court said the application’s focus was activity outside the consent’s scope; it was not an attempt to overturn the consent process.
The court accepted that an injunction under section 160 was discretionary. It weighed the public interest in lawful planning and environmental protection against the potential effect of stopping a viable, long-standing business. A central consideration was that no enforcement action had been taken by the planning authority, and the court had seen no evidence that such action had been threatened. It did not consider there was an imminent and serious environmental threat that justified the court intervening in place of the authority.
The injunction was refused. The judge stressed that the decision did not prevent the planning authority from taking enforcement action later.
Separately, the court held that the proceedings fell within section 3 of the Environment (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 2011 and that An Taisce had succeeded on its interpretation of substitute consent. It made no costs order at that stage, saying it would hear the parties further on costs.