The High Court has refused John Moore’s application for a certificate allowing him to appeal a judgment concerning planning consent for Kilsaran Concrete’s quarry at Bellewstown, Co Meath.
The application related to a principal judgment delivered on 4 December 2020. That case concerned An Bord Pleanála’s decisions of 24 October 2018 granting substitute consent and consent for future planning in respect of the quarry. The May 2021 judgment dealt only with whether questions raised by Moore should be certified for an appeal to the Court of Appeal.
The court considered five proposed questions. They concerned the Minister’s authority to make 2015 regulations implementing the Environmental Impact Assessment Directive, the route for certain development consent applications, the principles governing regulations made under the European Communities Act 1972, retrospective regularisation of development, and the High Court’s remedial powers in light of the pleadings.
Justice Miriam O’Regan said certification required a point of law of exceptional public importance, uncertainty in the law, and a public interest in an appeal. The question also had to arise from the judgment and be formulated precisely; a successful appeal had to be capable of affecting the proceedings’ outcome.
On the first question, Moore argued that the regulations were unnecessary to implement the directive and that the Minister had exceeded his authority. The Minister submitted that the regulations established a practical administrative process. The court said Moore had not identified uncertainty in the law governing the Minister’s powers, and that any public benefit from an appeal did not reach the required threshold.
The court said the second question did not arise from the principal judgment, which concerned a limited set of circumstances involving quarry applications for substitute consent. It also found that resolving the question would not alter the outcome. The third question likewise did not arise: the principal judgment had not relied on Irish legislation to identify principles guiding the Minister’s use of the 1972 Act.
The fourth question rested on assertions about errors at an earlier stage of the process that the court said had not been considered in the principal judgment. The issue was not raised in the statement of grounds. The fifth question, about the limits imposed by pleadings on the court’s remedial obligations, had also not been pleaded or addressed in the principal judgment.
The court refused the application for certification in its entirety. The ruling addressed permission to appeal; it did not reconsider the principal judgment’s decisions on the planning consents.