The High Court has refused Thomas Reid leave to appeal the dismissal of his judicial review concerning a planning decision involving An Bord Pleanála and Intel Ireland Limited.
In a judgment delivered on 6 October 2021, Mr Justice Humphreys dismissed Reid’s application under section 50A(7) of the Planning and Development Act 2000. His underlying proceedings had been dismissed in May 2021. The judge said the proposed appeal questions did not meet the statutory tests and concluded that an appeal to the Court of Appeal was not justified in the public interest in the circumstances.
Reid’s proposed questions concerned a developer’s obligations in preparing a Natura Impact Statement, the planning board’s autonomous obligations when carrying out an appropriate assessment, and the High Court’s treatment of material that had been before the board. The judge said the first question relied on a factual premise that had not been established in the case, and that section 177T of the 2000 Act had not been pleaded. He also said questions about whether legal principles had been correctly applied in this particular case were not ordinarily questions of exceptional public importance.
The judge accepted that the board must be satisfied that assessment material reflects the best scientific knowledge, and that the applicant still had to show evidentially that this had not been done or that contrary material required consideration. He said that point did not change the outcome of the judicial review.
A separate issue concerned a 2016 Natura Impact Statement, which Reid sought to rely on at the leave stage. The judge said it had not been properly admitted into evidence in the substantive proceedings. The late attempt to introduce it had deprived Intel of an opportunity to provide contextual evidence, making it unfair to admit it at that stage. The document referred to a tufa deposit north of the site, but the judge said its description was ambiguous as to whether it was a qualifying feature of the relevant European site.
The judgment also said applicants seeking planning-board records should request the complete file, documents removed from it, and relevant documents that were never on the file but were before the board, including material in a linked or related file.
On costs, Reid had sought an order against Intel and the board. Neither sought its own costs. The judge found no basis to award costs against Intel for objecting to the late evidence. He also found no special circumstances warranting costs against the board. The court made no order as to costs and directed that the order not be perfected for seven days, or until any application made by Reid within that period was determined.