The High Court has ruled that the defendants should be liable in principle for costs wasted after a late offer to assess an anonymised plaintiff for protection equivalent to the State’s Witness Security Program. It reserved the question of what costs were actually wasted until the trial of the action.
Mr Justice Rory Mulcahy delivered the ruling on 13 March 2025. The plaintiff, identified only as PP, had sought the full costs of a period from 15 January to 13 March after a scheduled four-week trial was adjourned. The court’s ruling concerns that costs application; it does not determine the underlying claims.
The plaintiff had provided confidential information to the Commissioner of An Garda Síochána and was registered as a human intelligence source, the judgment said. The proceedings include a challenge to the refusal to admit the plaintiff to the State’s Witness Security Program and other claims arising from the parties’ engagement. The defendants’ position was that the plaintiff did not meet the conditions for entry to the programme.
The trial was first scheduled to begin on 28 January 2025, then delayed to 4 February because of issues with discovery documents. On 29 January, the defendants’ solicitor told the plaintiff’s solicitor that the Commissioner had directed an assessment of whether the plaintiff might be suitable for equivalent relocation. The assessment was not an offer of entry to the Witness Security Program. It required the plaintiff’s consent and cooperation and could take up to six months.
After the plaintiff agreed to engage, the court adjourned the trial. The plaintiff argued that information underpinning the offer had emerged in 2024 and that an earlier offer could have avoided some immediate trial-preparation costs. The defendants accepted the offer was a significant development and its timing “sub-optimal”, but argued that it was premature to decide liability or identify wasted costs before the assessment and any later trial.
The judge found that the court retained power to award costs for particular steps in proceedings and that, in principle, the defendants should bear some costs caused by the delay. He said the late offer had caused costs that would not have been incurred had it been made when the relevant information came to the first defendant’s attention. He did not attribute bad faith to the defendants.
However, the judge said it was not yet possible to establish what work would prove wasted. That depended on the assessment’s outcome and whether, and how, either part of the case would proceed. Although four weeks had been reserved for trial, the court also lacked information about whether the plaintiff had incurred a liability for those reserved days.
The court therefore reserved the question of costs occasioned by the adjournment to the trial. The ruling does not specify an amount payable now.