The High Court has ordered the plaintiffs in two disputes over Aberdeen Lodge in Sandymount to pay the defendants’ reasonable costs, including reserved costs. Ms Justice Nessa Cahill delivered the costs judgment on 2 May 2025, following a contested hearing on 30 April.
The order covers two sets of proceedings. In the constitutional challenge, Patrick Halpin, Ann Keane and Elektron Holdings Limited must pay the reasonable costs of each defendant: Stairway Property Company Limited, Everyday Finance DAC, Ireland and the Attorney General. In the possession proceedings, those three plaintiffs, together with Madison Manor Limited, must pay Stairway and Everyday’s reasonable costs, including costs of the counterclaim and all reserved costs.
The costs decision followed a substantive judgment delivered on 8 April 2025. That judgment dismissed the constitutional challenge and counterclaim and granted Stairway the possession relief it sought. The costs hearing concerned whether the defendants’ unsuccessful preliminary arguments justified reducing their costs recovery.
The plaintiffs sought no order as to costs initially, but did not press that application. They then argued for a reduction, referring to a 20% discount applied in another case. The defendants opposed a reduction, arguing that the preliminary issues were reasonable, intertwined with the merits and did not materially add to the proceedings.
Justice Cahill found that the defendants had prevailed overall but were not “entirely successful” because some preliminary issues failed. She applied the court’s broad discretion and a “broad-brush” approach, considering whether the issues were reasonably raised and whether they added unnecessary cost.
She concluded that the preliminary issues were intertwined with the substantive claims and did not materially or unreasonably increase costs. Some helped clarify the scope of the constitutional claims; other preliminary objections succeeded. The unsuccessful objections occupied about 13 pages of the 103-page substantive judgment.
The judge identified the plaintiffs’ conduct, rather than the failed preliminary objections, as the greater contributor to the hearing’s length and complexity. She referred to concerns about parts of Halpin’s evidence, technical defences raised during the hearing, and rejected arguments concerning redactions, admissibility, deeds and alleged non-disclosure. Those concerns were relevant to costs, but the court made no reduction on that basis.
The plaintiffs also challenged the State’s attendance throughout the hearing. The judge rejected that argument, finding the State’s submissions reasonable and its contribution necessary, given the difficulty of separating the two cases during the hearing. An unelaborated point about an injunction sought by Stairway did not alter the costs outcome.