The High Court has dismissed a judicial review brought by Martin Mooney against An Bord Pleanála’s decision to grant permission for a permanent school building at Gaelscoil Bhaile Munna in Ballymun.
The judgment, delivered by Mr Bernard J. Barton on 26 March 2015, concerned permission to demolish prefabricated school structures and build a 12-classroom primary school at the junction of Santry Way and Coultry Road. Mooney lives at 380 Coultry Road, next to the school site.
Mooney sought an order quashing the Board’s decision. He argued, among other grounds, that the planning inspector’s report was biased and disingenuous, that the proposed car park and access would affect his home, and that he had not received a fair hearing. He also challenged the application’s descriptions of the building’s height and number of storeys, and disputed a measurement in a roads and traffic report.
The Board opposed the application, saying the inspector had fairly summarised and considered Mooney’s appeal and that the decision gave adequate reasons and conditions. It argued that the school’s response raised no new matters requiring the Board to invite a further response from him.
The court said judicial review examines the legality of the decision-making process, rather than rehearing the planning merits. It found that the inspector’s report, read as a whole, did not establish bias or disingenuousness. The disputed reference to the school project being held to “effective ransom” concerned an earlier suggestion about incorporating residual open space, the judgment said, and was not a personal reference to Mooney.
The court also found no evidence that the Board was biased or failed to consider the appeal. It held that no new issue in the school’s response warranted a further submission from Mooney, and that the Board acted within its powers in not inviting one. Any error in an approximate measurement in the roads report did not require the development to follow that figure. The court noted that the plans specified a building height of 11.975 metres and allowed a two-and-a-half-storey element at one corner, but no third floor.
The court concluded that Mooney had not met the burden of proof on the grounds for which he had been granted leave and which he pursued at the hearing. It ordered that the proceedings be dismissed. The judgment did not determine grounds that were not advanced at the hearing or issues outside the grounds for which leave had been granted.