The High Court has granted Aughey Enterprises Limited and Barry Aughey leave to pursue a judicial review concerning whether a fifth spur from the planned N2/N12 (Armagh Road) roundabout was eliminated from the Monaghan town bypass scheme without giving them an opportunity to be heard.
In a judgment delivered on 15 June 2005, Macken J. said the applicants had shown substantial grounds to proceed with claims for certiorari, mandamus and damages. The court’s decision was at the leave stage: it did not determine whether the council had made the alleged promise, whether the later process changed the scheme, or whether the applicants were entitled to any final relief or damages.
The applicants said plans for the bypass had shown a possible fifth arm from the roundabout towards their lands. They alleged that, at a meeting in August 2001 about a compulsory purchase order, the council assured them the spur would be built. They said the first applicant then withdrew its objection to the order in reliance on that assurance. The council’s engineer disputed that account, saying no commitment had been made and that the spur was only a possible future connection.
The council maintained that the 2004 procedure under section 179 did not change the existing position: the roundabout would allow for a possible fifth spur, but no decision had been made to build it. The applicants argued that the revised plans omitted the spur from the bypass construction and that they had not been consulted about that change.
Macken J. said the dispute required close consideration of the plans, the manager’s report and what the parties understood from them, as well as resolution of the conflicting accounts of the 2001 meeting. Those matters could not be resolved at the leave hearing. The judge considered the applicants’ grounds arguable and weighty enough to pass the statutory threshold.
The applicants withdrew their request for a stay during the hearing. The court therefore limited the permitted challenge to the decision to eliminate, or not construct as part of the bypass scheme, the fifth spur at the N2/N12 roundabout. The judge said the bypass could proceed as the council envisaged, including a junction that allowed for possible future construction of a spur. The precise form of the order, including consequential amendments to the mandamus relief, remained to be settled after hearing counsel. The court also left open whether to hear the parties on discovery.