The Director of Public Prosecutions has taken a High Court challenge aimed at allowing him to prosecute construction company Zoe Developments Ltd and another company, Roclad Ltd, in relation to an incident in which a building worker died.
At the High Court yesterday, Mr Justice Herbert granted leave to the DPP to bring judicial review proceedings in which the DPP will seek to have quashed decisions and orders made by Judge James Paul McDonnell at Dublin District Court on February 22nd last in proceedings taken by the National Authority for Occupational Safety and Health against Zoe Development and Roclad.
The proceedings arose out of an incident in November 1997 at Charlotte Quay, Dublin, in which a building worker died.
Mr Justice Herbert was told confusion arose after it emerged that summonses obtained by the DPP in February 1999 against Zoe, Canal House, Grove Road, Dublin, and Roclad, Vergemount Hall, Dublin, had been issued but not served on both companies or entered in the court list.
In an affidavit, Mr Matthew Shaw, senior assistant State solicitor, said failure to serve the summonses amounted to an oversight and arose "due to inadvertence". He had submitted to Judge McDonnell that the court could no longer proceed with the preliminary examination of both Zoe and Roclad. Since the summonses containing the charges brought by the DPP had not been served, the matters were not properly before the court.
Judge McDonnell had later accepted submissions by counsel on behalf of both companies that he did not have the jurisdiction to deal with the matter further. He then made orders discharging both companies pursuant to section 8 of the 1967 Criminal Procedure Act.
Mr Shaw said he had been advised that in the circumstances, the appropriate order for Judge McDonnell to have made would have been to strike out the matters from the list before him. This would have enabled the DPP to ensure that the two companies were properly brought before the court by way of summons or otherwise.
Mr Feichin McDonagh SC, for the DPP, said the charges were dropped after procedural errors were uncovered. Effectively, no proper charges were before the court, he said.
If the DPP's summonses were not before the court and counsel submitted they were not, the correct order for the judge to have made was to strike out the proceedings. Instead, Judge McDonnell had proceeded to discharge both companies, the effect of which amounted to an acquittal or a declaration of not guilty.
Zoe and Roclad were discharged on the basis that there was not sufficient evidence to put them on trial. The effect of this was to render no further prosecution possible, Mr McDonagh said.