The High Court has refused to overturn planning permission for the Gortyrahilly wind farm across parts of Cork and Kerry despite finding a breach of EU habitats law in the assessment process.
Wild Ireland Defence CLG challenged An Coimisiún Pleanála's February 2025 approval for a strategic infrastructure development comprising 13 turbines, a 110kV substation and related works across a number of townlands.
The remaining issue concerned the Gearagh Special Protection Area. Site-specific conservation objectives for that protected site were not published until 25 April 2025, two months after permission was granted.
Following a July 2026 ruling from the Court of Justice of the European Union, the parties accepted that a valid appropriate assessment under the Habitats Directive could not be carried out without those objectives and that the Commission had therefore erred.
The dispute was whether that error required the permission to be quashed.
Mr Justice Humphreys held that it did not. Gortyrahilly Wind DAC submitted updated expert evidence assessing the subsequently published objectives. The court found that evidence established that the missing objectives would not have changed the assessment or its conclusion that the wind farm would not adversely affect the Gearagh SPA. Wild Ireland Defence produced no competing expert evidence addressing that site.
The judge therefore applied the established doctrine of harmless error and exercised discretion against certiorari, the order which would have quashed the permission. He also cited the applicant's failure to raise the precise issue during the planning process, the public interest in renewable-energy infrastructure, the four-year age of the application and the disproportionate effect quashing would have on the developer.
The court nevertheless granted a declaration that the Commission breached Article 6(3) of the Habitats Directive by conducting the assessment without site-specific objectives. A separate declaration against the State for failing to have those objectives in place was also confirmed. The planning permission itself remains in force.