The High Court has ordered the Setanta Centre’s owner to preserve access from Nassau Street to Read’s shop while a dispute over the route proceeds to full trial.
In a judgment delivered on 2 June 2020, Ms Justice Mary Rose Gearty granted an interlocutory injunction to O’Flaherty’s (Nassau Street) Limited, which trades as Read’s. The company rents a unit in the Setanta Centre from Setanta Centre Unlimited Company. The order preserves the disputed access route pending trial; the judge did not finally determine whether an easement exists.
Redevelopment work had blocked the concourse leading from the shop to Nassau Street with scaffolding and hoarding. The landlord said the lease gave no express right to use that route and argued that customers could enter from Setanta Place instead. It offered to fund improvements to that access. The tenant said Nassau Street access was protected by an implied easement arising from the parties’ common intention and that blocking it interfered with its property rights.
The tenant also argued that damages after trial would not adequately address the loss of the route. The landlord said damages would suffice, questioned the evidence about the effect on the shop’s trade, and argued that an injunction would cause substantial commercial losses. The lease had about four years to run.
The judge found that the tenant had shown a fair issue to be tried. She noted evidence that the concourse entrance had been in use from the start of the tenancy in 1999, despite an earlier plan showing no door there. Whether that use established an implied easement remained disputed and required assessment at trial. The judgment also records that affidavit evidence had not been tested by cross-examination.
On the balance of convenience, the judge concluded that preserving the existing route was appropriate. She treated the longstanding access as the status quo and said a possible breach of property rights could not simply be answered by offering money. The judgment discussed redevelopment plans and the parties’ competing positions but made no final findings on disputed facts about how the works could proceed.
The injunction is interlocutory: it maintains access pending a full trial. The court did not grant a final injunction or rule conclusively on the tenant’s claimed easement.