The High Court has rejected Denis Dunne’s claim to acquire a triangular parcel of land beside Clondalkin station, finding that Iarnród Éireann and Coras Iompair Éireann (CIE) had a good paper title and that Mr Dunne had not proved adverse possession.
In a judgment delivered on 7 September 2007, Mr Justice Clarke said the disputed land had been included in land acquired by the Great Southern and Western Railway Company in the 1840s. The court relied on deeds, an 1848 survey, evidence of lettings from the 1930s to the 1960s and CIE’s occupation for rating purposes. The judge found these established a prima facie title that had passed to CIE.
Mr Dunne’s claim was that he had acquired title through long use of the land. The court accepted that he had used it to graze horses from at least the latter part of 1977. But the judge said he had to show a continuous 12-year period of exclusive possession, with an intention to possess the land itself, and no act of possession by CIE during that period.
The court found that station renovation works between 1993 and 1995 occupied and used part of the disputed land, and that a CIE contractor repaired fencing beside neighbouring land in or around 2001. Despite their limited extent, the judge held that these acts counted as possession of the undivided parcel and interrupted any period that might otherwise support the claim after about 1993.
For the period before 1993, the judge was not satisfied that Mr Dunne’s use amounted to possession of the land as an owner would use it. He found that only a small number of horses were likely to have been kept there, that substantial structures and fencing came later, and that informal paths and use by local children were inconsistent with Mr Dunne having exclusive possession. The use was at least as consistent with exercising grazing rights as with claiming ownership.
The judge said the claim would also fail because Mr Dunne had not shown a sufficient intention to possess the land until the latter part of the 1990s. He dismissed the claim. His comments expressing sympathy and suggesting CIE consider a modest accommodation were expressly described as a recommendation only; they created no legal obligation.