The High Court has said it will affirm most of a Circuit Court injunction requiring Michael Hogan to address unauthorised development on his land at Ballymore, Cobh, but ruled that the order cannot require him to close an entrance that was shown to exist more than seven years before the proceedings began.
In a judgment delivered on 20 October 2023, Mr Justice Twomey considered Hogan’s appeal against an order obtained by his neighbour, Jan Verwey, under section 160 of the Planning and Development Act 2000. The judge said the court would affirm the Circuit Court order, subject to hearing from the parties on its precise terms and with a minor change concerning unauthorised entrances.
Hogan accepted that he owned the lands, that unauthorised development had taken place and that he was in breach of planning laws. The works included roadways, foundations, work on a shed and hardstanding on land zoned agricultural. He argued that the site entrance, roadway and hardstanding had been developed more than seven years before Verwey’s June 2022 application, placing them outside the statutory time limit.
The judge accepted the defence in relation to the entrance: a May 2014 photomap showed it already existed, and the court said it could not grant an injunction requiring that entrance to be closed. But later photomaps showed significant intensification of the roadway and hardstanding, and further development between 2014 and 2022. Hogan did not dispute the engineer’s photomap evidence.
Hogan also argued that an injunction should not issue because he lived in a caravan on the property and his adult son lived in a mobile home there. Relying on a Supreme Court decision concerning a local authority’s application to remove people from their home, he said the court should consider the family’s housing prospects and the proportionality of an injunction.
The High Court rejected that argument. It distinguished a local authority, which has housing duties, from a private neighbour seeking to protect property interests. The judge said the neighbour had no duty to house Hogan or his son, and that the cited Supreme Court decision did not govern this private-party application.
Applying factors from an earlier planning case, the judge described the breaches as significant and Hogan’s engagement with the planning authority as poor. The judgment said warning and enforcement notices had not led to evidence of remedial action, and found that the public interest in enforcing planning law strongly favoured an injunction. Verwey had also submitted that Hogan’s son subjected him to racial slurs and threatened his life; the court noted uncontroverted submissions that a prosecution for the alleged offences was due to be heard shortly.
The court’s ruling was to affirm the Circuit Court order with the stated exception, but the precise terms remained for a further hearing.