The High Court has awarded Salmon Watch Ireland and Peter Sweetman’s applicant group 80% of their trial costs after they succeeded in having aquaculture and foreshore licences for a proposed salmon farm at Shot Head in Bantry Bay quashed.
In a costs ruling delivered on 11 December 2024, Mr Justice David Holland found that the applicants’ unsuccessful grounds had taken appreciable time during a 15-day trial. He therefore considered a reduction appropriate under the approach known as a Veolia order. But he set the reduction at 20%, taking account of the environmental and public-law context, the complexity of the case and the fact that the Aquaculture Licences Appeals Board had chosen to have three sets of proceedings heard together.
The underlying licences had been quashed in an earlier judgment, and the court had later ordered that they be remitted to the Board and the Minister for re-decision. The costs ruling records that the successful challenges included inadequate assessment of the risk from seal scarers to seals, inadequate environmental impact assessment of salmon escape risks, and inadequate reasons for concluding that the farm would not breach water-quality limits for dissolved inorganic nitrogen. The court also declared that the Board had delayed unreasonably in beginning its assessment of the seal-scarer issue over a roughly two-year period. It refused other relief concerning delay and rejected claims of objective bias.
The judge said the applicants had not succeeded merely on a narrow or technical point. He also noted that many unsuccessful arguments had substance and were not unreasonable to raise. Some allegations of bias against particular individuals, however, should not have been made. The court’s 20% reduction was a broad assessment of the case as a whole, rather than a calculation tied precisely to time spent on each issue.
Salmon Watch Ireland received no relief against the State, so it was not awarded costs against the State. Its costs against the Board are to be assessed on the basis of a 12.5-day trial, with any reduction applied. Sweetman’s applicant group was awarded costs against the Board and the State jointly and severally, assessed on the basis of the full 15-day trial; the Board and State may resolve any contribution between themselves.
The court made no general costs order for or against MOWI, which did not seek costs. The exception is the costs of Salmon Watch Ireland’s motion to cross-examine: MOWI and the Board are to bear those costs jointly, severally and equally. Inland Fisheries Ireland sought no costs, and none were ordered in its proceedings. No costs order was made on the remittal issue or, provisionally, for the costs hearing. The parties may apply within 14 days for a different order concerning the costs hearing, and all parties have liberty to apply on the precise terms of the final order.