The High Court has dismissed a challenge by six Kilkee residents to planning permission for a new wastewater treatment plant and foul pumping station in the Co Clare town.
Mr Justice Humphreys upheld An Coimisiún Pleanála’s June 2025 decision granting Uisce Éireann a 10-year permission for the project. Kilkee currently has no wastewater treatment infrastructure, with untreated wastewater being discharged into coastal waters.
The planning application was lodged with Clare County Council in January 2024. The council ultimately refused permission in October 2024. Uisce Éireann appealed, and an inspector later recommended refusal, principally because the proposed wastewater treatment plant site had not been shown to be optimal in terms of landscape and amenity impacts.
The commission disagreed and granted permission subject to conditions, including revised landscaping requirements.
Residents Martin Busher, Joseph Mc Closkey, Brian Melican, Ivan Graydon, Tom Boland and Terry Reynolds challenged that decision. Their remaining grounds concerned odour, site lighting and landscaping.
On odour, the residents argued that the commission wrongly treated the issue as one for the Environmental Protection Agency. The High Court rejected that interpretation. It held that the commission had considered the relevant 2005 regulations and could rely on a planning condition requiring compliance with the submitted design and operational commitments.
The court also rejected claims that lighting impacts on neighbouring properties had not been considered. The approved material provided that main site lighting would normally be off when the plant was unmanned, with low-level bollards operating in reduced-power mode.
On landscaping, the court found that the challenge focused on an earlier planting proposal rather than the revised alternative scheme ultimately approved on appeal. That final proposal included earthworks and screening measures and was expressly incorporated by condition.
Mr Justice Humphreys held that none of the grounds justified quashing the permission. He added that, even had a technical defect been established, certiorari would have been disproportionate given the urgent environmental need to end longstanding raw sewage discharges into the sea.