Environmentalist Vincent Salafia will learn today whether he will have to pay a legal costs bill, which could be more than €600,000, arising from his unsuccessful challenge to the proposed routing of the M3 motorway near the Hill of Tara.
Mr Justice Thomas Smyth will rule this morning on the costs issue. Yesterday, counsel for Mr Salafia urged that costs orders not be made against him on grounds that he took the case in the public interest and out of his concern to protect the Hill of Tara.
The burden on a person who took such cases was "enormous", Colm Mac Eochaidh said. Because of the costs involved in High Court actions, very few people could risk their homes to bring proceedings but the ability to bring such cases was critical to a healthy society and democracy.
In this case, Mr Salafia had taken on the burden in circumstances where he had no private interest whatsoever. He had also not sought an injunction to halt archaeological or road works. While there had been criticism about his delay in bringing the case, he could not have known new laws would be introduced in 2004 which would disapply protection for national monuments.
Mr Salafia was also adversely affected by the court's decision not to allow his experts give oral evidence to the court, counsel added. The only objection from the defendants to such critical evidence was that it was late, he said.
However, lawyers for the State, Meath County Council and the National Roads Authority strongly argued for their costs against Mr Salafia, stating he had lost on all grounds, delayed in bringing his action and that his case was "substantially flawed".
It was argued the court had found Mr Salafia had no legal standing to bring the case and therefore could not be a public interest litigant and that the issues raised in his case had already been raised in earlier actions.
It was further argued Mr Salafia had brought the case on the basis that the core Tara area was a national monument in circumstances where there was disagreement between himself and his experts on that matter.
Maurice Collins SC, for Meath County Council, said serious allegations had been made by Mr Salafia that the council had misled the Minister for the Environment about the nature of archaeological discoveries along the M3 route. However, "not a scintilla of evidence" was brought to support that claim.
