A COMPANY director yesterday lost his High Court claim that Nenagh Urban District Council should not have issued a certificate in 1994 stating that a development where Dunnes Stores now has an outlet complied with planning permission.
Mr Joseph O'Connor, who is also a member of the council, brought his proceedings against the council, while Dunnes Stores Ltd was named as a notice party.
Mr Justice Geoghegan made no order on costs in relation to Mr O'Connor's proceedings against the council, but said that Dunnes was entitled to its costs against him. The case had been at hearing for five days last month. A stay was granted on the order for costs in the event of an appeal.
Mr O'Connor, proprietor of O'Connors Shopping Centre, Nenagh, claimed that a development at Annbrook, Limerick Road, Nenagh, as built, did not comply with planning permission provided in 1974 and that it was unauthorised.
The council said that the premises had been constructed in substantial compliance with planning permission issued in November 1974 to Mr Thomas Mulqueen for development of the site. In 1994, it had merely stated that it had no objection to the property as developed. Mr Mulqueen sold the premises to Dunnes in 1994.
The UDC and Dunnes submitted that Mr O'Connor had no locus standi to claim the reliefs sought that the certificate had been given in September 1994 and that Mr O'Connor was well out of time under court rules and that the document itself was not capable of being quashed.
Mr Justice Geoghegan, in his reserved judgment, said he was prepared to accept with considerable misgivings that Mr O'Connor might have locus standi. He was also inclined to the view that the document was sufficiently of public nature to permit it being judicially reviewed.
However, the judge said, even if Mr O'Connor had locus stand and the document could, in theory, be the subject of judicial review, he was satisfied Mr O'Connor ought not to be granted such relief.
Unless there was some proven element of fraud or public corruption it would be wrong for the courts to circumvent those time limits by giving reliefs which would take the form of denying or at least querying compliance with planning permission by the route of judicial review.
Mr Justice Geoghegan said that not only was there no evidence of wrongful collusion or corruption between the council and Dunnes, but there was no evidence of mala fides on the part of the council.