Latest news with #RichardHumphreys
Irish Times
22-05-2025
- Business
- Irish Times
Bord Pleanála's appeal over climate law duties could have ‘far-reaching consequences', senior judges say
The Supreme Court will hear An Bord Pleanála's appeal against a judge's ruling that it failed to act, as far as practicable, in line with climate action law objectives when it refused planning permission for a 13-turbine wind farm in Co Laois. A three-judge Supreme Court panel said the court should hear the case as it has 'potentially far-reaching consequences' and is of 'systemic importance for the entire planning process'. Mr Justice Richard Humphreys in January quashed An Bord Pleanála's decision to refuse permission sought by Coolglass Wind Farm Ltd for the development. He found the board failed to act in a compliant manner, as far as practicable, with climate objectives set out in the 2015 Climate Action and Low Carbon Development Act. READ MORE That 'failure' constituted a breach of the board's duty under the European Convention on Human Rights Act, 2003, and a breach of other EU law obligations, he ruled. Coolglass's wind farm was initially refused by the board because it was to be located across town lands where wind farm developments are prohibited by the Laois County Development Plan. In its challenge to that decision, Coolglass alleged An Bord Pleanála had failed to approve enough green energy infrastructure projects to meet 2030 environmental targets. In a determination published this week, three Supreme Court judges said An Bord Pleanála's appeal of Mr Justice Humphreys's ruling raised important issues regarding the obligations imposed on authorities, such as the board, by climate objectives in the 2015 Act. The appeal also questioned the extent to which the board, in deciding on Coolglass's permission application, can depart from the Laois County Development Plan terms. Also raised were questions around the High Court's application of the European Convention on Human Rights Act, the panel said. An Bord Pleanála said the precise nature of the obligations imposed by the 2015 Act must be clarified as the issue affects its daily decision-making functions. The judges said this point was among the factors that weighed heavily in favour of allowing the board to appeal to Supreme Court from the High Court.
Irish Independent
12-05-2025
- Business
- Irish Independent
Shannon LNG power plant project stalled by legal challenge
Friends of the Irish Environment (FIE) asked the High Court to allow a judicial review of An Bord Pleanála's decision to grant permission for the project The environmental group argues that the greenhouse gas emissions that would result from the gas-powered electricity generation plant have been undercounted. It says if the plant goes ahead, the electricity sector will breach the emissions threshold legally set for it. It also says An Bord Pleanála, by granting planning permission, failed in its responsibilities under Section 15 of the Climate Act which requires that public bodies act in accordance with the Climate Action Plan. Judge Richard Humphreys granted the group's request for leave for a judicial review and listed the case for a fortnight's time. Shannon LNG has been trying to build a liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal and regassification plant on the Co Kerry coast for almost 20 years and is involved in a protracted planning and legal battle over the project. However, last March it received permission for a separate but related electricity generation plant on the same site. The plant, which would be one of the country's biggest, would burn high-emissions conventional fossil fuel gas to generate electricity. It would also have the option of burning even more emission-intensive LNG if the import terminal and regassification plant receive permission. Opponents argue that approving the power plant will make it harder to refuse the LNG facilities and create a 'lock-in' effect, embedding LNG in the country's energy supply for the long term. ADVERTISEMENT Shannon LNG argues the power plant is necessary because of the growing demand for electricity in the country. It argues shipping LNG into Ireland is necessary because most of the country's supply of conventional fossil gas comes from an undersea pipe from the UK which could be vulnerable to disruption. The Government supports that view and earlier this year lifted a ban on LNG importation. In papers lodged to the court, FIE said there were critical failures in the environmental impact statement submitted by Shannon LNG in its planning application. Paul Price, adjunct professor at Dublin City University, said the method the company used to calculate the likely greenhouse gas emissions was incorrect and the emissions were 'significantly underestimated'. The group argues that new power plants that would generate more than 3 gigawatts (GW) of electricity were already awaiting construction – more than the 2GW the Government said was needed to meet electricity demand to the end of the decade. "Even on the developer's emissions calculations (which significantly underestimate greenhouse gas emissions) this single power station would on its own account for one-third own of all budgeted emissions from the entire electricity sector in 2030,' it argues. 'Nowhere does the Inspector [of An Bord Pleanála] explain how this could possibly be compliant with the relevant carbon budgets and sectorial emissions ceilings.' The matter back in court on May 26th.
Irish Examiner
12-05-2025
- Business
- Irish Examiner
Environmental group challenges permission for Shannon LNG terminal in Kerry
An environmental group has brought a High Court action seeking to quash An Bord Pleanála's (ABP) decision to grant planning permission for a liquefied natural gas terminal in north Co Kerry. The planning authority in March granted permission to Shannon LNG for the proposed development of a 600MW power plant on a 630-acre site between Tarbert and Ballylongford on the Shannon Estuary. On Monday, Mr Justice Richard Humphreys gave permission to John Kenny BL, appearing for Friends of the Irish Environment (FIE) and instructed by FP Logue solicitors, to bring judicial review proceedings against An Bord Pleanála, Ireland, the Attorney General and the Minister for Housing. Shannon LNG is a notice party in the action. Last September, following proceedings brought by Shannon LNG, Mr Justice Humphreys overturned the board's refusal of planning permission for the proposed power station. In its reviewed decision, the board said it was satisfied that the plant was consistent with national climate ambitions. In its court documents, FIE claims that ABP breached Irish and European law in granting permission for the proposed development. FIE claims An Bord Pleanála failed to adequately consider statutory carbon budgets and sectoral emissions ceilings set out in the Government's Climate Action Plan 2024 in its decision, and its related obligations under the Climate Action and Low Carbon Development Act 2015. FIE says that the board did not gauge how the proposed development was consistent with carbon budgets and sectoral emissions ceilings, other than to justify the granted permission because of Government policy support for constructing gas-fired power stations deemed necessary for achieving the target of a 50% reduction in carbon emissions by 2030. FIE says the calculated greenhouse gas emissions arising from the proposed development is 'manifestly incorrect and significantly underestimated' in an environmental impact assessment report submitted to the board by the developer. Based on these 'underestimated' calculations, the proposed development will account for one third of all budgeted emissions – based on limits set out in the 2024 Climate Action Plan – from the entire electricity sector in 2030, FIE claims. FIE also says the board was wrong to find that the proposed development constitutes a sustainable development, and its decision to grant permission is invalid as it constitutes a material contravention of the Kerry County Development Plan 2022-2028 and Listowel Municipal District Local Area Plan 2020-2026. FIE says An Bord Pleanála breached obligations under the European Union's environmental impact assessment directive. The environmental group claims the board could not and did not make a valid decision on the impact of the proposed development under the EU's Habitats Directive. The case returns to court in two weeks. Read More An Bord Pleanála withdraws appeal leave application in Shannon LNG case
Irish Times
12-05-2025
- Science
- Irish Times
Authors of paper claiming Irish judges use Wikipedia as a source for rulings dispute ‘flawed' research criticisms
The authors of a controversial academic paper that claimed Irish judges use Wikipedia as a source for their rulings have published a new paper disputing suggestions that their research is flawed. The original paper was published in 2022 and was criticised in a subsequent study published in May 2023, co-authored by High Court judge Mr Justice Richard Humphreys, which said citations in judgments are driven mainly by legal submissions and maintained there was no 'Wikipedia effect'. The authors disagreed with the study's criticisms and on Monday published a detailed paper, entitled Trial by Internet – a response to judicial critics, standing over their research methodology. In the original paper, researchers at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Maynooth University arranged for 154 articles on Irish Supreme Court decisions to be written by law students. Half were uploaded to Wikipedia and the rest were kept offline as a control group. READ MORE The authors said the cases mentioned in the uploaded articles were 20 per cent more likely to be cited as precedents in court rulings than similar cases that had not been uploaded. They also claimed an analysis of the language used in the judgments found the 'linguistic fingerprints' of the Wikipedia articles. The later research, carried out by Mr Justice Humphreys and six judicial assistants who worked with judges of the superior courts, criticised the 'headline-grabbing claims' in the 2022 paper. Mr Justice Humphreys said there were 'fundamental problems' with that paper rendering its conclusions unreliable and that 'baseless speculations' seemed to come from a lack of knowledge about how judgments are produced. It was claimed the 2022 paper worked off a commercial website rather than the official website where judgments are published, leading to the possibility of consistency issues. Among other criticisms, it argued the authors compared too long a period of citations before the articles appeared on Wikipedia with a short period of about two years afterwards. Using different methodology to compare citations of the cases mentioned on Wikipedia and those in the control group, the 2023 paper said the citations rose by the same amount and that meant no effect from the cases being mentioned on Wikipedia. In response to that research, one of the original authors of the 2022 paper, Dr Brian Flanagan, an associate professor at the school of law and criminology at Maynooth University, said their analysis stood up to the criticism levelled at it. In their latest paper, the original authors say their use of commercial data was cross-checked against the court's own records and a small difference of less than 1 per cent did not change their conclusions and was not a research 'flaw'. They said further analysis provided support for their findings that cases added to Wikipedia jumped immediately in terms of citations by judges after being added. Despite claiming to 'debunk' their research, the 2023 paper did not do the work necessary for that, they said. What the 2023 paper did instead was to attempt 'an entirely different analysis, with far less data and supporting argument'. They said a 'notable benefit' of the type of analysis in their 2022 paper – a randomised control trial – 'is that it can establish causation without having to rule out all other possibilities'. This was why such analysis is used in medical trials 'and why, when a drug is approved for treatment, no one objects by saying not all other medical explanations were checked'. The 2023 paper 'read more like legal submissions than social science' and did not provide the research needed to show whether the critics' objections would undercut the arguments advanced in the 2022 paper. Their reframing of their research results as concerning 'legal professionals' rather than 'judges' was made in response to feedback, they also said. 'Some had interpreted our original wording as indicating that the discovered effect must stem from judges/assistants alone. We had always understood that it was likely that lawyers were also playing a role. Our rewording simply reflected the need to clarify that we were not limiting the mechanism to judges and their staff.'
Irish Times
04-05-2025
- General
- Irish Times
Fast-track planning approval for 112 houses and apartments in Co Cork overturned by High Court
A fast-track planning approval for more than 100 houses and apartments in Co Cork has been overturned after the High Court dismissed An Bord Pleanála's 'conveniently Jesuitical' reading of the county development plan. The permission was quashed over the board's failure to justify, in accordance with planning law, its material contravention of objectives of the Cork county development plan (CDP) providing that it 'should' carry out a proper historic buildings assessment, in this case of a post-medieval heritage structure, Highlands House, and associated buildings, before granting planning approval. The board defended its decision on the basis of the notion that the best interpretation of the wording, intention and purpose of the CDP was to say 'that 'should' means you don't have to do it' and the word 'assess' means to assess after the decision has been taken to knock the structure down, Mr Justice Richard Humphreys said. Neither the developer nor board had inspected the interior of Highlands House, which appears on maps from the 1840s and therefore benefits from the protections in the objectives of the CDP, he said. READ MORE The board incorrectly placed 'outsize reliance' on the non-inclusion of the buildings in the Record of Protected Structures and the National Inventory of Architectural Heritage. The scheme of the CDP was clearly to extend protection for structures not included in those, he held. In his judgment on Friday, he rejected the board's 'conveniently Jesuitical reading' of the CDP and upheld the challenge by a local resident, Deirdre Condon, to the permission granted in late May 2022 to Ruden Homes Ltd. The permission was for demolition of existing buildings and the construction of 112 residential units – 72 houses and 40 apartments – on the site at Ballynaroon, Glounthaune. Cork County Council objected to permission in the absence of an archaeological assessment of the site structures and the board's approval was made under what the judge described as the 'ill-fated', 'much-criticised' and since repealed strategic housing development (SHD) procedure. This particular application was coming before the board as its record of SHD permissions in breach of development plans was 'coming to something of a crunch point, as its deputy chairperson [Paul Hyde] stepped aside on May 10th, 2022', he noted. A board inspector had completed a site visit on May 16th 2022 and, in his report, had recommended permission be granted. The report said Highlands House and other buildings had been heavily modified over time, with 'little' remaining of importance, and disagreed with the local authority's view the house should not be among structures for demolition. Having agreed with the inspector's report, the board directed on May 31st, 2022 that permission be granted. The judge agreed with the board that the relevant CDP – which was replaced on June 6th, 2022 by the Cork County Development Plan 2022-28 – was not mandatory in relation to preserving historic buildings in situ. Before demolition, other options included preservation by a record or by recovered artefacts. However, an assessment, in the clearly intended sense of a physical survey, was envisaged by the CDP as required in advance of demolition, he said. In this case, the board had decided that a full physical survey was required but argued that did not have to be done before a grant of permission and could instead be addressed via a planning condition. That logic was 'incompatible' with the view that there was compliance with the CDP, the judge held. The primary purpose of a survey of historic buildings can only be to guide whether development consent should be granted. Otherwise, if anything of interest that would affect the permission to demolish was discovered in the survey, all that could then be done was to close an empty door 'with the runaway horse just a dot on the horizon'.
