The High Court has refused Paul Freeney’s application for a certificate to appeal its earlier decision upholding planning permission for a gaming use at Fairgreen House in Galway city.
In a judgment delivered on 24 January 2025, Mr Justice Conleth Bradley refused certification on all four proposed points of law. The application was made under section 50A(7) of the Planning and Development Act 2000. The court said the statutory requirements are cumulative: a proposed point must be of exceptional public importance and it must be desirable in the public interest that an appeal be brought.
The application followed the court’s 2024 judgment refusing Mr Freeney’s judicial review challenge to An Bord Pleanála’s 1 November 2021 grant of permission to CWC Fairgreen Limited for a change of use from retail to gaming and related works at Fairgreen House, Fairgreen Road.
Mr Freeney proposed questions about the interpretation of the planning law on material contraventions, the test for the adequacy of public notices, screening for appropriate assessment under the Habitats Directive, and whether the Board had left planning regulation of the proposed use to the licensing regime under the Gaming and Lotteries Act 1956.
On material contravention, Justice Bradley said the issue had not been argued or decided in the earlier judgment in the way now proposed, and he found no uncertainty or lack of clarity in the cited case law. On public notices, he said the earlier judgment had considered their purpose and found them adequate, both objectively and in light of the applicant’s response to the proposal. That earlier finding was that Mr Freeney had raised gaming objections and was not misled or prejudiced.
The court rejected the proposed question on appropriate-assessment screening as too general. It also noted that part of the challenge had concerned an alleged lack of intelligible reasons that was not properly pleaded. On the alleged abdication of planning functions, the judge said the earlier judgment had found that the Inspector and the Board addressed the planning merits; the proposed point did not meet the certification requirements.
The refusal concerns permission to appeal. It does not determine whether the gaming operation has obtained the separate resolutions, certificates or licences described in the judgment as necessary under the 1956 Act. The court listed the matter for 6 February 2025 at 10:30 to address costs.