The High Court has made no order as to costs on the Environmental Protection Agency’s application arising from its removal as a respondent to part of David Malone’s enforcement proceedings over the restoration of the former Ballinderry quarry pit.
In a judgment delivered on 4 February 2025, Mr Justice Conleth Bradley said the Agency’s application concerned a request in Malone’s notice of motion to prohibit it from processing a waste licence application by GCHL Limited. That request had already been struck out in an earlier judgment, [2024] IEHC 336. Malone’s enforcement action against GCHL continues on the other reliefs.
The earlier ruling found that the requested prohibition had no jurisdictional basis in the statutory enforcement proceedings brought under planning and waste legislation. The judge said it was a remedy akin to judicial review that had been sought within a statutory enforcement application. He expressly made no finding on the merits of the requested relief.
The Agency argued that Malone should pay its costs of the preliminary application, relying on exceptions to the default rule under the Environment (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 2011. It said the way he conducted the proceedings justified costs, or alternatively that his claim was frivolous or vexatious. The Agency also submitted that any costs should be measured to ensure they were not prohibitively expensive. It had previously told Malone that its costs incurred up to the hearing totalled €20,250.21 and invited him to provide information about his financial resources.
Malone asked the court to defer the costs decision pending consideration of his EU law issues and an appeal. The judge said he did not need leave from the High Court to appeal the earlier judgment and that it was appropriate to decide the costs application then.
Justice Bradley concluded that the request against the Agency was misconceived and bound to fail in the enforcement proceedings, but amounted to incorrect rather than unreasonable conduct. He also did not consider the request frivolous or vexatious. Applying the Act’s default position that each party bears its own costs, he declined to make a costs order against Malone. As a result, he said, there was no need to measure the Agency’s costs.