The High Court granted the Board of Management of St. Patrick’s School an injunction against Eoghan O’Neachtain Limited in a dispute over a car park operated from the school yard in Galway. The ruling was an interlocutory decision, based on affidavit evidence; the court did not determine the parties’ underlying claims at trial.
The school board said the company’s agreement to use the yard as a car park had expired on 31 January 2018 and that the company was then trespassing. It sought an order requiring the company to leave. The company maintained that its arrangement was a tenancy, rather than a licence, and had served notice of an intention to seek relief under the Landlord and Tenant Act 1980, including, in the alternative, €750,000 compensation for disturbance.
The court said a party seeking a mandatory interlocutory injunction had to show a “very strong case”. It found the written agreements and the circumstances strongly supported the board’s position that the company had permission to use the yard at limited times, without exclusive possession. The agreements allowed the board to change opening days to accommodate school needs and to terminate the arrangement on one month’s notice if it required the yard for development or another purpose.
The judge also considered whether the company could qualify for a new tenancy under the 1980 Act if its arrangement were found to be a tenancy. The company had an arguable case that a wheeled hut on the land could count as a building. But the court considered the company had very limited prospects of showing that the yard was subsidiary and ancillary to the hut, as required for the land to qualify as a “tenement”. The judge said the evidence instead suggested the hut was ancillary to the car park.
On that basis, the court found the board had established the strong case required for the injunction. It also concluded that damages could adequately compensate the company if the injunction proved wrongly granted, and that the balance of convenience favoured granting it. The judge required the board to give an additional undertaking not to create a tenancy for a future car park occupant until proceedings arising from the parties’ previous relationship had concluded.
The judgment states that the board was entitled to an order in the terms of paragraph 1 of its motion. The judge said he would hear counsel further on any additional orders, undertakings and costs. The ruling does not record a final determination of the tenancy dispute or the company’s statutory claim.