Cork community group fails in bid to stop reconsideration of incinerator plan

A community campaign group has lost in its attempt to stop An Bord Pleanála from reconsidering a planning application for an incinerator in Cork harbour.

A judge refused Cork Harbour Alliance for a Safe Environment (CHASE) leave to appeal against the High Court’s remittal of the Indaver planning application for the incinerating plant back to An Bord Pleanála.

Mr Justice David Barniville said in a judgment on Tuesday that the questions proposed by CHASE in the appeal application did not involve any point of law of exceptional public importance.

He was satisfied it would not be desirable in the public interest that an appeal would go to the Court of Appeal in respect of any of the issues raised by CHASE.

The judge said the CHASE’s application was “somewhat different” to other applications for leave to appeal, as the group had already obtained an order from the court quashing An Bord Pleanála’s decision to grant permission for the incinerator plant at Ringaskiddy.

Last October, Mr Justice Barniville overturned the 2018 planning permission to Indaver for the multi-million euro incinerator and remitted the application back to the planning board for further consideration and determination.

In that judgment, the judge said the planning process for the incinerator must return to the point in the process immediately prior to a decision made on behalf of the board by deputy chairperson Conall Boland not to afford CHASE the opportunity of responding to the further information and submissions received from Indaver.

CHASE had sought leave to appeal the remittal of the planning application back to An Bord Pleanála.

In his judgment on Tuesday, Mr Justice Barniville said his decision to remit Indaver’s planning application to An Bord Pleanála was made in the exercise of a wide discretion vested in the court on the basis of applying well established principles governing the remittal of planning applications.

He said the appeal sought arises from the court’s decision to remit the matter to a point in time in the planning process to be considered by the board in circumstances where the person whose involvement gave rise to the objective bias will no longer be involved.

“That is a very unusual situation. I find it hard to see how an appeal from a decision to remit the application in those circumstances would sit comfortably with the clear intention of the Oireachtas that a decision of the High Court in a case like this should generally be final and there should be no appeal save in the exceptional circumstances provided for in Section 50 of the legislation,” the judge said.