Skellig Michael boat trips can resume, court rules

Irish Examiner

05-06-2025

The High Court has given the go ahead for boat trips to Skellig Michael to resume.
Mr Justice Garrett Simons granted an application by the Office of Public Works (OPW) to lift an automatic suspension on landing at the Unesco heritage site and former monastic island, which was also used as a film location for the Star Wars movies, The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi.
The order will allow the OPW to enter into a legally binding contract with each of 15 boat operators who were successful in the public competition for permits to land on the island off the Kerry coast. The landing season runs from mid-May to the end of September each year.
Those landing permits were automatically suspended when two unsuccessful bidders brought a High Court challenge to the decision. The OPW then had to apply to the court asking that the stay be lifted pending hearing of the substantive challenge.
The unsuccessful bidders, Atlantic Endeavour Ltd and SMBT Ltd, trading as Skellig Michael Boat Trips, disagreed with the OPW interpretation of the legal effect of the automatic suspension.
They contended there were a number of mechanisms open whereby landing permits might legitimately be granted to the successful tenderers for the balance of the 2025 season, while preserving their own right to challenge the allocation of landing permits for the 2026 and subsequent seasons.
Mr Justice Simons heard the application to lift the suspension this week and on Thursday ordered that it be lifted.
He said the practical effect of this order was that it would now be legally permissible for the OPW to issue landing permits to the 15 successful tenderers for the balance of the 2025 season.
This will allow for the commencement of passenger landings at Skellig Michael, or Sceilg Mhichíl in Irish.
He said his judgment entails no finding whatsoever on whether the outcome of the tender process allows the OPW to confine the right to land passengers on Sceilg Mhichíl to the 15 successful tenderers for a five-year period.
The proper interpretation of the request for tender and associated documentation, and the legal consequences of the tender process, remain open for debate at the trial of the action, he said.
The judgment, he said "goes no further" than deciding the execution of concession contracts does not result in the crystallisation of a contractual right on the part of the successful tenderers to exclusive landing rights for the 2026 and subsequent seasons.
He said the significance of this finding was that the unsuccessful tenderers were not relegated to a claim for certain damages in respect of the 2026 and subsequent seasons.
The only right which the OPW seeks to translate into a concluded contract, prior to the determination of the full High Court challenge, is confined to the 2025 landing season, he said.
He said he was listing the substantive action for the alleged breaches of the public procurement legislation in July.