The High Court has ruled that Michael Duffy’s application for leave to challenge Clare County Council’s planning decision was out of time and could not proceed. It also refused to allow him to amend his pleadings to add a separate complaint about when the permission issued.
The case concerned the Council’s conditional permission for the Board of Management of Scoil Naomh Phádraig to replace the existing septic tank serving the school in O’Callaghan’s Mills, County Clare. The Council received the planning application on 19 February 2015. The five-week period for submissions ended on 25 March; no submissions or observations were received during that period.
The Council received a letter from Duffy on 7 April, dated 2 April. It treated the letter as a late submission or observation and returned it. On 10 April, the Council decided to grant conditional permission. The permission issued on 11 May.
Duffy began judicial review proceedings on 9 June 2015, seeking to quash the Council’s decision. At the leave hearing, the court first considered whether the application was timely. Under the planning legislation, an application for leave generally had to be made within eight weeks of the decision or act being challenged. The court calculated that the deadlines for the decisions Duffy sought to challenge had passed between 16 April and 4 June. His proceedings began on 9 June.
The judgment said Duffy had identified no good reason to extend the time limit and there was no suggestion that the failure to apply on time was outside his control. The court therefore concluded that the leave application was out of time.
Duffy also raised a complaint shortly before the hearing that the planning permission had issued less than three working days after the appeal period ended. The four-week period to appeal to An Bord Pleanála ended on 8 May, and the permission issued on 11 May. The judge observed that no appeal had been brought or attempted and no prejudice had arisen from the early issue of permission.
That complaint was not included in Duffy’s pleadings, although the relevant facts were available before he began proceedings. The court refused to permit an amendment to add it, finding that doing so would prejudice the other parties and revive a complaint that was itself out of time.
The judgment, delivered by Mr Justice Max Barrett on 8 November 2016, addressed the timing issue at the leave stage. It did not determine the underlying validity of the planning permission.