Local residents have taken High Court proceedings challenging a decision to allow two Traveller families move for health reasons on to lands at Drumline, near Newmarket-on-Fergus, in Co Clare.
Mr Gary Howard, an import agent and member of Drumline Residents' Association, yesterday secured leave to seek orders and declarations against Clare County Council, including a declaration that the site, located alongside the Mulcair road works site at Drumline, is not suitable for emergency accommodation.
Mr Pat Butler SC, for Mr Howard, said roadworks were being carried out in the area on behalf of the council in November 2002. The engineer in charge of those works had decided to allow the two Traveller families on to the site, presumably for charitable reasons. The site was not a designated halting site.
Following objections by residents, solicitors for the council had written that the facility was put in place by a senior engineer to accommodate a family for health reasons. The solicitors accepted the facility did not accord with the council's development plan but said it had no alternative place for the Travellers and that the county manager was entitled to use his emergency powers to allow the Travellers remain on the site.
Mr Butler said Mr Howard was contending the site was an unauthorised development and that the county manager could not retrospectively use emergency powers to declare this emergency accommodation within the meaning of the Local Government Act. He also argued that the council was obliged to consult with local residents on proposals for halting sites but there was no consultation in this case.
Mr Justice O'Donovan said he would grant leave to Mr Butler to take judicial review proceedings challenging the development. In those proceedings, Mr Howard will seek declarations that the development materially contravenes the council's development plan and that the failure to consult local residents contravenes both the development plan and the Traveller Accommodation Programme for Co Clare.
He is also seeking an order quashing the county manager's decision to deem the site suitable for emergency accommodation.