The High Court has refused Eco Advocacy CLG leave to appeal after its earlier challenge failed to secure the quashing of planning permission for a Statkraft Ireland Ltd wind farm development.
Eco Advocacy had obtained declaratory relief and related costs in the substantive proceedings, but the court did not grant certiorari, the order that would have quashed An Bord Pleanála's decision. In January 2025, Mr Justice Humphreys found that the applicant had not produced sufficient evidence to show that the board's reasons for its environmental assessments were defective.
Eco Advocacy then proposed 13 appeal points or sub-points under eight headings. They concerned appropriate assessment of effects on European sites, the burden on members of the public to produce expert evidence, costs, publication of legal submissions and the court's digital audio recording, and time limits imposed on oral submissions.
Humphreys J held that many of those issues did not properly arise from the case. Some had not been pleaded or argued, while others concerned provisional steps that were never ultimately taken. Questions about the environmental assessment largely sought to revisit established principles or the application of those principles to the particular evidence, rather than identifying a new question of law.
The judge also rejected the challenge concerning management of the hearing. He found that Eco Advocacy had been given a reasonable overall opportunity to present its case through written and oral submissions and noted established authority permitting courts to impose reasonable time limits.
The court further considered the public interest in avoiding additional delay. The planning application had been made in February 2020, more than five years earlier, and the proposed development involved renewable-energy infrastructure.
Leave to appeal was therefore refused. No costs order was made on the leave application unless the Supreme Court later granted a leapfrog appeal, in which case those costs would follow that appeal and previously ordered costs would remain stayed pending final determination.