The Supreme Court allowed an appeal by Save the South Leinster Way and Tara Heavey over the time limit for challenging a planning decision, ruling that their judicial review application was brought within the prescribed period. The Court did not decide the planning challenge itself, which is now entitled to be heard on its merits.
In a judgment delivered on 5 December 2024, Mr Justice Maurice Collins agreed with the conclusion reached by Justices Murray and Donnelly, though he set out his own reasoning. The appeal concerned whether the applicants’ deadline expired on Friday 18 November 2022 or ran until Monday 21 November, because the Central Office was closed on the final day.
Justice Collins said Order 122, Rule 3 of the Rules of the Superior Courts provides that where a proceeding cannot be taken because the Central Office is closed, it is treated as timely if taken on the next day the office is open. He said that rule applied to the statutory eight-week period for starting a planning judicial review, because the required application had to issue from the Central Office.
The respondents’ arguments that the planning legislation excluded the rule were, in Justice Collins’s view, unconvincing. He said the rule answered the time-limit objection and agreed with Justice Murray’s analysis of its relationship with other court rules and statutory limitation periods. He did not decide whether a separate presumption about statutory interpretation applied, or whether the time limit was “jurisdictional”.
The planning decision by An Bord Pleanála was made on 26 September 2022. Evidence before the Court was that it was posted to the applicants the following day; the earliest they could have received it was 28 September. There was no evidence about when the decision and related documents were made available for inspection. Justice Collins observed that requiring proceedings by 18 November would have further reduced the time actually available to understand the decision, take advice and prepare a case.
The notice party in the appeal was Springfield Renewables Ltd. The Supreme Court’s ruling was limited to the deadline issue: the applicants had until 21 November 2022 to bring their application, and are entitled to have it adjudicated on its merits.