‘Urgency’ in resolving challenge to survey licence for €1.5 billion offshore wind farm, says judge

It is in Ireland’s national interest that a resolution is reached as soon as possible in a fisherman’s challenge to a licence for investigating the site of a proposed €1.5 billion wind farm off the east coast, a High Court judge has said.

Mr Justice Richard Humphreys highlighted a “degree of urgency” in the case brought over the granting of a five-year foreshore licence permitting developer RWE Renewables Ireland Limited to carry out technical surveys of the site of a proposed “Dublin Array” wind farm comprising 39-50 turbines 10km off the coast of counties Dublin and Wicklow.

The court has permitted RWE to conduct passive metocean surveys, but the rest of the licence’s effects are suspended pending further order or resolution of the case.

Mr Justice Humphreys said current State policy has decided this project is important to Ireland meeting its climate change commitments.

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He pointed to the State’s binding target of producing 80 per cent of its electricity through renewables and attaining 5GW of offshore wind capacity by 2030. This project is expected to produce 16 per cent of that 5GW target, the judge said.

Thus, resolving this court case as early as possible is “important in Ireland’s national interest and that of the EU”.

The action, brought by Co Wicklow fisherman Ivan Toole and his company Golden Venture Fishing Limited, was initiated last April and has already been the subject of six judgments.

In a ruling published on Tuesday, Mr Justice Humphreys said he will ask the Court of Justice of the European Union to determine expeditiously a set of EU law questions that have arisen in the proceedings. He has already dismissed several grounds of challenge in the case, but Mr Toole and his firm have lodged an appeal.

The judge has yet to decide on the precise questions to be sent to the European court, but they concern the obligation to assess a project’s impact on the conservation of natural habitats and wild fauna when considered in combination with other projects.

Mr Justice Humphreys said he will ask the European court to apply its expedited procedure on account of the urgency of resolving issues related to national and international policy objectives and environmental protection aims.

Mr Toole alleges the surveying works planned for a “highly sensitive” sand bank will have an adverse impact on the environment and a European-protected site. A specific environmental screening of the project did not sufficiently consider its effects alongside impacts from other plans or projects, claim Mr Toole and his firm.

The case has been contested by the respondent Minister for Housing, who granted the licence, and RWE, as a notice party to the action, which submitted that the court-imposed pause to the licence’s effects is having “significant programmatic delays” for the project, with commercial and financial implications.

Mr Toole, with an address in Ashford, Co Wicklow, and his firm, which fishes whelk, lobster, crab and shrimp, allege the planned survey area is hugely important for sea birds, minke whales, common dolphins and many fish species.

“Any physical interference with the shifting sands on this bank will have a massive knock-on effect not only on the species we target but on every bit of marine life that exists in the area,” Mr Toole claims.