The High Court has remitted a planning enforcement case concerning a concrete operation at Oakstown, Trim, to the Circuit Court in County Meath. The order decides where the proceedings will be heard; it does not determine whether the development or use at the site is lawful.
Kilsaran Concrete Unlimited Company brought the proceedings under section 160 of the Planning and Development Act 2000 against O’Reilly Oakstown Limited and O’Reilly Bros Limited. The company seeks orders restraining alleged unauthorised development on lands occupied or controlled by the respondents and requiring the removal of structures it alleges are unauthorised.
In an ex tempore judgment delivered on 18 January 2022, Ms Justice Siobhán Phelan ruled on the respondents’ application to remit the proceedings. The parties did not dispute that the lands were valued at €950,000, within the Circuit Court’s statutory jurisdiction. The judgment records that the site had been used in the concrete industry since the late 1960s or early 1970s and was acquired by the respondents as a going concern around 2003. The extent and nature of the historical and current use remained disputed.
The court identified contested questions including the effect of a 1982 planning permission, whether long use protected the activity from enforcement, whether use had intensified or changed, and the relevance of a planning refusal and the Habitats Directive. The judge said the case would require the hearing court to consider conflicting evidence and make findings of fact.
The respondents argued that a High Court hearing would increase their costs and that the case was locally based, with the lands and many witnesses in Meath. Kilsaran argued that the scale of the operation and the potential implications of the orders justified retaining the case in the High Court. It cited the site’s area, turnover and staffing, and said the issues merited High Court consideration.
Justice Phelan held that the High Court had power to remit the proceedings under general courts legislation, despite the absence of an express remittal provision in section 160. She found that the case was not linked to other High Court proceedings and did not raise an unusually important or novel legal question requiring that forum. While the site’s scale and the potential reach of any eventual orders weighed in favour of keeping the case in the High Court, those factors did not outweigh access to justice, the policy of bringing suitable cases before the lower court of competent jurisdiction, and the additional costs of High Court proceedings.
The judge concluded that it was not reasonable to maintain the case in the High Court and ordered its remittal to the Meath Circuit Court. She did not decide the underlying planning dispute. The parties were to be heard on costs.