The High Court ordered the State to pay C. A. and her son 20% of their costs in a judicial review over direct provision, reduced by 25% to reflect inefficiencies in how the case was conducted. The applicants were also awarded €1,500 plus VAT for a separate issue about permission to remain in Ireland while their subsidiary protection applications were pending. The judgment concerned costs, following an earlier judgment in the proceedings.
The court’s earlier order declared that four provisions of the Reception and Integration Agency house rules—room inspections, daily sign-in, notice of intended absence and a ban on guests in private quarters—disproportionately interfered with the applicants’ constitutional right to privacy. It also declared that they were entitled to an independent complaints procedure for their accommodation. The State accepted that the applicants had succeeded on those issues and on an argument concerning the enforceability of social and economic rights.
However, the judge said those successes accounted for about 20% of the time and effort spent on the case. The applicants had brought broader claims challenging direct provision, the allowance paid to residents and the scheme’s constitutional basis. The court had rejected the claim that the scheme breached the constitutional provisions on legislative power, as well as the challenge to the allowance. It also ruled that the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights did not apply. The court said the applicants had not produced sufficient evidence to establish the alleged harmful effects underlying most of their human rights claims. The legal question of whether direct provision breached human rights was left undetermined on the evidence presented.
The judgment records that claims concerning the processing of subsidiary protection applications became moot after a new process was established. The court said that change did not warrant costs because it was not prompted by the proceedings. A separate claim for formal permission to remain became moot after the State changed its position once litigation had begun. The court awarded €1,500 plus VAT for that issue.
The judge declined to award the State costs for the issues it had won, saying that doing so would undermine access to court for vulnerable people whose lawyers had acted on a conditional fee basis. But the court also criticised the applicants’ case for sprawling pleadings, inadequate preparation of evidence and lengthy submissions on European human rights claims that were later abandoned. It ordered the State to pay 15% of the applicants’ costs overall, to be assessed if the parties could not agree, plus the separate €1,500 and VAT.