The High Court has struck out proceedings brought by Chris and Rose Murray seeking to set aside earlier court orders requiring the removal of an unauthorised dwelling on their land in County Meath. It also refused their application for an interlocutory injunction, but left any ancillary orders to be addressed after hearing the parties.
Mr Justice Conor Dignam delivered judgment on 20 November 2024. Meath County Council had asked the court to dismiss the Murrays’ claim as frivolous, vexatious or an abuse of process. The Murrays sought to reopen orders made in earlier proceedings under section 160 of the Planning and Development Act 2000, including a High Court order upheld by the Supreme Court and a later consent order.
The earlier orders required the Murrays to remove an unauthorised development and restore the land for agricultural use. In 2020, Mr and Ms Murray undertook to vacate the property by 24 September 2022 and facilitate its demolition. Three days before that deadline, they began the present proceedings, arguing that new evidence undermined the earlier orders.
They relied on an affidavit from John Murtagh, one of the former co-owners of the larger landholding. He said he had signed letters indicating willingness to enter sterilisation agreements related to planning permissions for his daughters’ houses, but had not discussed the letters with the other co-owners or obtained their authority. The Murrays also relied on the absence of formal section 47 agreements and on a separate judgment which found a planning board’s stated reason concerning sterilisation invalid in a different case.
The court held that the new proceedings amounted to an impermissible collateral challenge to planning decisions. Such decisions could be challenged through judicial review, subject to statutory time limits; the Murrays had not brought that challenge. The judge also concluded that the claim to set aside the earlier court orders could not succeed on the basis advanced. The new evidence concerned the validity of planning decisions, which the courts in the section 160 proceedings had not determined. The judge said the Murrays had not properly pleaded the fraud or deliberate deceit required to reopen final orders on the basis of new evidence.
The separate planning judgment did not change the outcome, the court said. Other, independent reasons for refusing planning permission remained, and setting aside the later consent order alone would provide no tangible benefit while the earlier High Court and Supreme Court orders stood. The court also rejected the Murrays’ constitutional challenge to section 160, finding that necessary parties had not been joined and that the issue could have been raised earlier.
The judge concluded that the proceedings were frivolous and vexatious and an abuse of process, and struck them out under the court’s inherent jurisdiction. Because the substantive proceedings were dismissed, he refused interim injunctive relief. The judgment did not itself determine what ancillary orders, if any, should be made; the parties were to be heard on that question.