The Supreme Court has ruled that Raymond Hegarty and the Garda Commissioner must each pay their own legal costs in a case concerning the Commissioner’s power to seek the dismissal of a Garda following disciplinary proceedings over the same alleged conduct.
Hegarty had challenged the Commissioner’s attempt to invoke section 14(2) of the Garda Síochána Act 2005 after a disciplinary process under the Garda Síochána (Discipline) Regulations 2007 had concluded.
The High Court quashed the Commissioner’s decision in 2022 and awarded Hegarty his costs. The Court of Appeal dismissed the Commissioner’s appeal in 2023 and also ordered that Hegarty receive his appeal costs, while dealing separately with costs arising from an unsuccessful cross-examination application.
The Commissioner then appealed to the Supreme Court. In its substantive judgment, delivered separately as [2025] IESC 36, the Supreme Court allowed that appeal.
The remaining question was who should pay the substantial costs accumulated across all three courts. The Commissioner argued that, having ultimately succeeded, he should recover his costs throughout. Hegarty sought his own costs and asked the court to preserve the orders previously made in his favour.
The Supreme Court rejected both positions.
It held that the proceedings qualified as public interest litigation. Hegarty had sought public-law relief against a State agency, while the Supreme Court had accepted the appeal because it raised an issue of general public importance concerning the relationship between the 2005 Act and the 2007 disciplinary regulations.
The court said the Commissioner had benefited from clarification of difficult legal questions concerning the scope of his powers and the maintenance of public confidence in An Garda Síochána. That justified departing from the usual rule that the successful party receives its costs.
However, the case did not fall within the rare category where an unsuccessful public-interest litigant should receive costs.
The Supreme Court therefore made no order as to costs and directed that the earlier High Court and Court of Appeal costs orders be vacated.