The High Court has ordered Student A to pay Trinity College Dublin's costs of a successful application to lift reporting restrictions in ongoing judicial review proceedings.
The student began the case in September 2024. When leave for judicial review was granted that December, the court imposed restrictions preventing publication of material that could identify either the student or Trinity.
The university applied in April 2025 to have those restrictions removed. In a principal judgment delivered on February 6, 2026, Mr Justice Garrett Simons ruled that Student A was not entitled to anonymity, subject to a temporary restriction preserving any right of appeal.
The latest ruling, delivered on March 5, deals only with who should pay the costs of that motion. Student A argued that each side should bear its own costs because the case addressed issues of public importance concerning open justice and students seeking admission to regulated professions.
The judge disagreed. He said established Supreme Court principles already set a high threshold for departing from open justice, and the fact that those rules were being applied to a student rather than a qualified professional did not create a new point of law.
The court also noted that one strand of Student A's case had incorrectly assumed that professional disciplinary hearings for qualified pharmacists are normally private. Under the Pharmacy Act 2007, the default position is that such hearings are public, subject to a power to sit privately in appropriate circumstances.
Other arguments concerning reputation, social media and mental health were also rejected, with the mental-health case lacking independent medical evidence.
The court held that Trinity had been entirely successful on the reporting-restrictions motion and was entitled to its costs, including reserved costs and the February 19 costs hearing. However, enforcement of the costs order was stayed pending final determination of the High Court proceedings or any appeal.