The High Court has refused James Kenny permission to bring fresh proceedings seeking to prevent Trinity College from enforcing costs orders arising from his long-running challenge to a development at Dartry in Dublin.
Kenny was subject to an order preventing him from commencing further proceedings without court permission. Mr Justice Clarke had previously allowed him to submit a revised draft claim before deciding whether leave should be granted.
The proposed case argued that Trinity College's original planning permission was invalid under European law and that costs orders arising from Kenny's unsuccessful challenges should therefore not be enforced. Kenny relied in part on a European Court of Justice ruling concerning the Derrybrien wind farm project.
The court held that the proposed action was, in substance, a challenge to the validity of Trinity's planning permission. Irish planning law required such a challenge to be brought by judicial review. It also imposed an eight-week time limit, although the High Court could extend that period where statutory conditions were met.
Mr Justice Clarke said European law did not remove those national procedural requirements. If Kenny wished to pursue a planning challenge, he would have to seek judicial review and separately establish a stateable basis for extending time.
The judge also rejected attempts to reopen costs orders from later applications in which Kenny had unsuccessfully alleged that an earlier court judgment had been procured by fraud. Those costs arose from separate failed challenges and would not fall away even if there were some defect in the original planning permission.
Further proposed claims were also refused. An attempt to revive the fraud allegation would be an abuse of process, while allegations that the completed development breached its permission were already being pursued in separate proceedings. The court also found no basis to halt enforcement of costs merely because Kenny had complained to the European Commission.
Permission to bring the proposed proceedings was refused.