The High Court has dismissed applications by four companies for leave to appeal rulings that refused to quash parts of the Meath County Development Plan.
In a judgment delivered on 9 December 2022, Mr Justice Humphreys ruled on applications brought by Killegland Estates Limited and, in a separate case, McGarrell Reilly Homes Limited and Alcove Ireland Eight Limited. Meath County Council was the respondent in both proceedings. Cornelius Giltinane and Patricia Giltinane were notice parties in the Killegland case.
The applications followed earlier High Court judgments on 1 July 2022, which refused the companies’ requests to quash the development plan. The companies sought leave to appeal, advancing five proposed questions in the Killegland case and nine in the McGarrell Reilly case. The judge said the applications did not establish a basis for leave and dismissed both.
A central issue was that the companies challenged the zoning of their individual lands without challenging the development plan’s overall housing strategy. The judge said the plan’s core strategy set the amount and distribution of housing across the county, and that provision was already allocated to other lands. He concluded that the court could not make an order benefiting the applicants without a challenge to that strategy.
The judge also addressed the proposed appeal points. He said several concerned legal questions on reasons for planning decisions that had already been addressed by the Supreme Court, while others did not arise on the facts or were specific to the cases. He described the applications as, in substance, disagreements with the elected members’ land-use decisions.
The court did not address the public-interest limb of the leave test, saying it was unnecessary in the circumstances. The dismissal means the earlier refusals to quash the development plan remain in place; the judgment did not itself make a new zoning decision.