The High Court has dismissed Oxigen Environmental Unlimited Company’s challenge to the refusal of permission for a large waste recovery and recycling facility at Carnabreagh, Dundalk.
The proposed development, on an unserviced rural site off the Ardee Road, was intended to process up to 90,000 tonnes of municipal solid waste a year. It would include a processing building of about 9,263 square metres, operate underlying systems around the clock, and accept waste by HGV between 7am and midnight from Monday to Saturday.
Louth County Council refused permission in June 2021 and the refusal was upheld on appeal in January 2023. The commission cited the rural location and development plan policies, potential effects from noise and air quality, and concerns about groundwater abstraction and recharge.
Oxigen argued in judicial review proceedings that the commission lacked a proper evidential basis for those conclusions and had wrongly treated the land as zoned. It also challenged the use of potential impacts in the environmental assessment.
Mr Justice Humphreys rejected those arguments. He held that the commission was entitled to assess Oxigen’s environmental material rather than simply accept its conclusions. The court found that judgments about whether odour, noise and groundwater impacts were acceptable fell within the commission’s planning expertise, and Oxigen had not established irrationality or other legal error.
The judge also held that considering potential and unmitigated environmental impacts was not improper but formed part of the environmental impact assessment process.
On the development plan issue, the court accepted that describing the site as “zoned” was not ideal terminology. However, it found that this did not invalidate the decision, because the commission was entitled to apply rural enterprise policies EE55 and EE59 and conclude that the proposal materially contravened them.
The proceedings were dismissed. Unless a party made a further written application within seven days, the court proposed no order as to costs, with the matter listed for 1 December 2025 to confirm the position.