The High Court has refused a residents’ application for declarations and an order concerning Dublin Airport Authority’s compliance with a condition attached to planning permission for a new runway at Dublin Airport.
The application concerned Condition 12, which required the authority, before development began, to submit a comprehensive environmental protection plan to Fingal County Council for written agreement. The plan was to address construction impacts, including waste management. The council accepted most parts of the authority’s plan in October 2016 but said the waste management plan had yet to be submitted.
Works began on 16 December 2016, the court found, relying on affidavit evidence that was not contradicted by other evidence. The authority submitted its waste management plan to the council in February 2017, and the council then accepted it. The court held that this was too late to satisfy the condition’s requirement that submission take place before work started. The plan, it said, had been in operation from the start of works, though it had not yet been agreed by the council.
The residents sought a declaration that specified works carried out between 16 December 2016 and 15 February 2017 were unauthorised development, and an order requiring future development to comply with the permission and its conditions. They argued that the breach was material and that the condition protected the community and the environment.
The judgment also addressed asbestos waste records. A certificate recorded collection of asbestos on 2 December 2016 from “Runway Enabling Works”, before the authority’s stated start date. The court nevertheless accepted the uncontradicted affidavit evidence that development works began on 16 December. It found no evidence of dishonesty, and accepted that the late submission resulted from innocent oversight.
The court concluded that it had jurisdiction under section 160 to grant declaratory relief, but that relief was discretionary. It considered that the breach had been remedied as far as possible before proceedings began, that the authority had acted in good faith, and that the breach was temporary and immaterial in the circumstances. It also weighed the public interest in the runway project and the council’s supportive stance.
The court declined to grant any of the reliefs sought. It did not declare the specified works unauthorised or make an order directing future compliance. The judgment records a breach of the pre-commencement condition; the refusal of relief was the court’s discretionary decision in this application.