Local residents have lost a High Court bid to adjourn two legal challenges to the proposed €75 million development of the State's first hazardous waste incinerator at Ringaskiddy, Co Cork.
However, they may appeal the refusal of the adjournments to the Supreme Court.
The residents had sought the adjournments pending the outcome of a legal action against Ireland in the European Court of Justice brought by the European Commission based on its formal view that Ireland has failed to properly transpose into Irish law an EU directive relating to the environmental impact assessment of public and private projects, including incinerators and projects affecting important archaeological sites such as the proposed N3 motorway near the Hill of Tara.
Among the grounds on which the Ringaskiddy residents had initially challenged the proposed incinerator development is that the same EU directive was not properly transposed.
The State had opposed the application to adjourn two legal challenges, arguing the High Court was bound at this stage by a Supreme Court decision last year rejecting a challenge by Eric Martin to the development of an incinerator in Co Meath in which the Supreme Court dismissed claims that the EU directive was not properly transposed.
The Supreme Court had also refused Mr Martin's request to refer to the European Court of Justice the issue of whether the directive was properly transposed.
The hearing of the adjournment application concluded last November before Mr Justice Patrick McCarthy who reserved judgment.
In his decision yesterday the judge said he was bound by the decision of the Supreme Court in the Martin case in relation to the correct interpretation of the directive and also by that court's refusal to refer the matter to the European Court of Justice. The Martin decision meant domestic law was "unambiguously" to the effect that the directive was validly transposed into Irish law, he said.
The judge said he was bound for every purpose in domestic law by the Supreme Court decision as to hold otherwise would place him in breach of a fundamental principle of our law.
The first set of proceedings which was sought to be adjourned was a judicial review challenge by local people to the incinerator against An Bord Pleanála and the State following the board's decision in January 2004 granting permission to Indaver Ireland to construct the development.