Meath County Council is facing a bill for an estimated €500,000 costs after defeating a High Court challenge to its county develoment plan.
Mr Justice Quirke ruled the case was a bona-fide public interest one and the council should pay half the challengers' costs and legal expenses. He held that the challengers had acted out of a valid public interest in the environment and in the interests of communities affected by planning considerations.
Although they lost their action, the challengers - An Taisce chairman Mr Michael Smith and Cllr Tony McEvoy of Kildare County Council - had established a large number of factual issues, including that "the nature and extent" of the consideration given by the elected members of Meath County Council to guidelines for the zoning of lands for residential purposes "give rise to concern (and indeed unease)".
In September last, the judge dismissed the challenge to the making and adoption of Meath County Development Plan. The issue of who should pay the costs of the 12-day hearing was deferred.
Now, the High Court has ruled the council should pay 50 per cent of the applicants' costs and legal expenses as well as 100 per cent of the costs of the daily transcript of the hearing.
Legal sources estimate that the total bill for the council of its own costs and the parts of the applicants' costs which it has been directed to pay will be some €500,000.
In their proceedings, Mr Smith and Mr McEvoy claimed that the Meath County Development Plan did not comply with the strategic planning guidelines for the Greater Dublin Area, published in March 1999. That claim was rejected.
In his ruling on costs, Mr Justice Quirke said neither of the applicants was seeking to protect some private interest of his own and he was satisfied they had acted solely to further a valid public interest in the environment, particularly the interests of those communities affected by the planning considerations applicable to the greater Dublin area.
The proceedings had raised public law issues which were of general importance where the applicants had no private interest in the outcome and were therefore involved in a "public interest challenge."
In exercising his discretion in the case, the judge held he was entitled to take into account some findings of fact which he had made in his judgment. It was appropriate that he should do so as he had concluded the proceedings comprised a bona-fide public interest challenge.
The judge said that an analyis of the minutes of Meath County Council meetings between October 1999 and March 2001 disclosed that no land zoning application, among a very large number considered at more than 50 meetings, was determined or even considered in the context or against the background of the strategic planning guidelines.