The Supreme Court has refused to order Meath County Council to prepare a Local Area Plan for East Meath after the legislation underpinning that obligation was repealed while the case was awaiting judgment.
In a ruling delivered on 19 February 2026, the court held that an order of mandamus — a court order compelling a public body to perform a legal duty — had become futile and inappropriate because sections 19 and 20 of the Planning and Development Act 2000 were repealed from 31 December 2025.
Protect East Meath Limited had brought judicial review proceedings after the council failed to begin the statutory process for replacing the East Meath Local Area Plan 2014-2020, which expired in October 2020. Under the legislation then in force, the council was required to publish a proposal to make or amend a plan at least every six years.
In an earlier Supreme Court judgment in the same appeal, Mr Justice Woulfe held that the council had a statutory obligation, rather than a discretion, to prepare a Local Area Plan. The court also rejected arguments that resource or staffing difficulties placed the case within an exceptional category where enforcing the duty would effectively be impossible.
However, after the appeal hearing, new planning legislation commenced and repealed the provisions on which the original claim was based.
Protect East Meath argued that substantially similar obligations now exist under the Planning and Development Act 2024 and sought an order requiring the council to begin preparing an Urban Area Plan. The Supreme Court said that was not the relief sought in the proceedings and there was no evidence before it that the council was in default under the new legislation.
The court therefore refused mandamus. Protect East Meath was nevertheless awarded its costs of the proceedings.