M6 - Galway City Ring Road [planning approved]

As expected really. Wouldn't be surprised to see someone else launch one as well, there's still time.

Note that I haven't read the article as it's paywalled for now.

It'll all be public fairly soon. The courts don't move fast when this stuff is just starting out, it can take a week or so for it to appear in the court diary.

There's a chance that a CPO will go to court, but there's very little chance of it being successful, or of it delaying the project. CPO is a well established and documented law, with plenty of case law confirming that it is all sound. In fact, the last time I remember a CPO failing was at intel, where the IDA tried to CPO land next to the plant "just in case". The judge said that "just in case" wasn't a sufficient need, so tossed it, but a few years later, Intel and the IDA went back with an actual plan, and CPO'd that land just fine. There was a challenge to it again, but it sailed through the courts.

As an aside, I spot a lot of people complaining about a JR without know what a JR actually consists of. I've attached a completely unrelated judgement from the head of the planning court, which lists out the 8 fold test for a JR to be successful. It's fairly dense, but is readable by a lay person. It is in this context that people should think about these JRs.

Here's the guts of it, but there's more in the doc on the onus of proof, etc.

These tests are cumulative, and relief should only be granted if the proceedings meet all of the following:
(i) the applicant complies with jurisdictional requirements (e.g. time or standing to bring the proceedings at all (as opposed to standing for particular issues within a case that the applicant can bring at a general level));
(ii) the applicant’s point is legally correct and workable;
(iii) the applicant’s point is properly pleaded with the requisite specificity;
(iv) the specific point is one that the applicant has standing to make (bearing in mind that while standing can relate to issues such as ius tertii it does not generally require prior participation in the process insofar as there is an EU/Aarhus Convention dimension);
(v) material capable of sustaining the point was properly before the decision-taker at the relevant time such as to give rise to a duty to consider it (subject to exceptions primarily related to failure by the decision-taker to fulfil her autonomous obligations);
(vi) the applicant has discharged the onus of proof to establish all facts necessary for
relief;
(vii) any error must transcend the harmless, the non-material and the purely technical lacking real-world consequences, bearing in mind that if error is demonstrated, then the onus shifts to the opposing parties to show harmlessness; and
(viii) the exercise of discretion within established parameters does not militate against the making of the order (such as considering the proportionality of the order sought), bearing in mind that discretion is potentially more limited in an EU law context.

Despite the perception, it is quite difficult to pass all of these.

Speaking specifically about this case, the questions that I think are most likely to come up are:

• Was ACP right to look at the entire GTS for climate mitigations, and not just the M6 Ring Road, and were the reasons given sufficient.
• Was ACP right to dismiss induced demand, and it's effect on climate, and where the reasons given sufficient.

Anything else does not have enough behind it, in my opinion. The JR, taken by the couple, probably doesn't have anything behind it other than "we don't like the impact it will have on us", which almost certainly isn't enough for a successful JR.