The High Court has refused Peter Sweetman’s application to quash a revised industrial emissions licence granted to Nurendale Limited, trading as Panda Waste Services Limited, for its waste facility at Rathdrinagh, Co Meath.
In a judgment delivered on 12 March 2018, Mr Justice Coffey held that the Environmental Protection Agency had assessed matters within its own remit. The court rejected the argument that the Agency was also required to examine whether Meath County Council had properly carried out environmental impact assessments when granting planning permissions.
The licence, signed on 8 September 2016, followed the Agency’s assessment of the proposed biological treatment facility and the wider licensed activity. The Agency had determined that the activity, if operated in accordance with the licence conditions, would not breach relevant environmental standards or cause pollution. It also concluded that there was no reasonable scientific doubt that the activity would not adversely affect the integrity of four protected European sites.
Sweetman argued that the Agency’s licence effectively authorised the entire project, including waste acceptance of up to 250,000 tonnes a year, despite no environmental impact assessment having been carried out on the planning side for that threshold. He also argued, in the alternative, that Irish law had not properly implemented the EU Environmental Impact Assessment Directive.
The court said the Agency’s licence did not amount to planning consent and could not authorise land use within the planning authority’s remit. Planning permissions, the judgment said, authorise particular development and infrastructure, while an environmental licence governs the relevant activity. A valid consent from the Agency did not establish that the project had the corresponding planning consent.
The judge also said the challenge to the Council’s planning decisions could not properly be determined in the Council’s absence. Sweetman had not sued Meath County Council, which was entitled to defend its decisions. The challenge would also amount to a collateral attack on planning permissions that Sweetman had an opportunity to contest but was prima facie out of time to challenge.
The court found no statutory or directive-based duty requiring the Agency to oversee the validity of the planning authority’s decisions. It rejected Sweetman’s separate objections concerning the assessment of protected sites and alleged non-compliance, finding that he had not provided an evidential basis for those claims. The judgment also rejected the argument that the licence retrospectively authorised ongoing activity.
The court refused all the reliefs sought. The judgment did not determine whether the facility had planning consent for a 250,000-tonne annual waste threshold; it held that the Agency’s licence itself did not provide that planning consent.