The Supreme Court dismissed Timothy Casey’s appeal against the refusal of a permit to land paying passengers on Skellig Michael, holding that the Minister acted within her powers to protect and manage the national monument.
In a judgment delivered by Murray J. on 24 February 2004, the Court upheld the High Court’s refusal to quash the Minister’s decision or grant the other declaratory relief sought. The appeal concerned the refusal of Casey’s 1998 application. Earlier refusals were outside the time limit for judicial review, according to the High Court ruling described in the judgment.
Casey had bought a boat, the *Puffin*, in 1995 and obtained a passenger certificate in 1998. He argued that the permit system unlawfully restricted access to the island and was arbitrary, including because it excluded him from the group allowed to land visitors. The Minister’s position was that visitor numbers had to be controlled to preserve the site and protect visitors.
The Court recounted evidence that rising visitor numbers had damaged the island’s vulnerable dry-stone monastic remains and access routes. A 1994 report recommended controlling boat trips and passenger numbers. Following discussions with local boat operators, the authorities introduced a scheme in 1995: 19 annual, non-transferable permits, with one trip per day and a maximum of 12 passengers per trip. The stated aim was to reduce the number of permits to 15 as operators stopped trading. By 2000, 16 permits remained.
The Court found that the National Monuments Acts empowered the Minister to impose access conditions and limits for preservation and protection. It treated the permit arrangements as administrative management decisions, not delegated legislation, and rejected the argument that they amounted to an unconstitutional delegation of law-making power.
It also rejected Casey’s claim that refusal of a landing permit denied his constitutional right to earn a livelihood. The Court said that right did not entitle him to use State property for his business. The judgment noted evidence that he could take passengers on sightseeing trips around the Skellig rocks without landing, as well as on fishing trips.
On the challenge to the allocation criteria, the Court held that the Minister could take account of operators who had been trading or had invested in boats before the proposed limit was announced. It found the approach rational and objective in light of the conservation purpose and the need for cooperation from existing operators. The Court concluded that the system was not so inflexible as to cause an injustice and that future permits could be considered if circumstances allowed. It dismissed the appeal.