The High Court has dismissed Thomas Reid’s challenge to An Bord Pleanála’s decision to grant planning permission for an extension and revision of Intel Ireland Limited’s manufacturing facility at its Leixlip campus, County Kildare.
In a judgment delivered on 27 May 2021, Mr Justice Humphreys said the proceedings had to be dismissed. The court had earlier granted leave for the judicial review to proceed, after separating the leave application from the substantive hearing. That procedural decision did not determine the challenge’s outcome.
Reid sought to quash the board’s decision of 23 November 2019, which was subject to 18 conditions. He argued, among other things, that the environmental assessment did not adequately address ammonia emissions and effects on protected habitats, and that the board lacked sufficient expertise to assess the developer’s environmental material.
The judge found that the evidence before the board did not establish reasonable scientific doubt about the assessment of ammonia effects. Although expert evidence submitted by Reid criticised the developer’s analysis, the judge said the relevant question was whether a reasonable expert, with sufficient expertise and fully informed by the material before the board, would have seen a reason for doubt. The concerns raised had not been shown to meet that test on the record available to the board.
The court also rejected Reid’s other grounds, including challenges concerning Dublin Bay protected sites, construction impacts, major-accident emissions and consultation with the Health and Safety Authority. The judge said the board’s consultation had not been shown to be inadequate and that evidence about the limited likelihood, duration and extent of accidental emissions was uncontradicted.
The dismissal came with significant criticism of the board’s approach to technical scrutiny. The judge said the board had to have, or have access to, sufficient expertise to examine environmental assessments. He noted that the board appeared to have accepted the developer’s material without identifying an error in the cited scientific report on the ammonia limit, and questioned whether routing complex applications through a single inspector could meet the expertise required by EU law.
Those concerns did not change the result. The judge said the broader expertise issue was not sufficiently pleaded or developed in evidence in this case. The only pleaded expertise complaint concerned major-accident air emissions, and the court did not find grounds to uphold it. The judge dismissed the application and directed the parties to liaise with the List Registrar to arrange a further hearing for consequential matters.