It has not been a good year for Charles Haughey. It was Mr Haughey who in 1989 personally piloted the controversial An Blascaod Mor National Historic Parks Act through the Oireachtas, with the aim of making the Great Blasket a State park.
Yesterday, after an 11-year legal battle, Mr Haughey's grand plan was finally laid to rest when the Supreme Court upheld a High Court ruling that the Act was unconstitutional.
The Act was designed to enable the former Taoiseach to nurture a dream to create a major tourist centre off the south-west coast, but the legislation, caused an outcry from a handful of landowners on the Great Blasket.
The High Court case was taken by Mr Peter Callery, his brother Mr Jim Callery, Ms Kay Brooks, widow of Mr Philip Brooks, and Mr Mattias Jaunch, a German national and lecturer in University College Cork. In their action they claimed there were seven islands in the Blasket island chain and that if a national park was appropriate, it should comprise all the islands.
The State denied the seven islands were commonly regarded as a single unit. The Great Blasket, it claimed, had been the only inhabited island, though there was a herdhouse on Inishvickilaune - bought by Mr Haughey in 1974.
Peter Callery is a solicitor who moved to Dingle, Co Kerry, in 1963. Among his clients was an American, Mr Taylor Collings, who began buying property on the Great Blasket in 1970. In 1972 Mr Collings sold half of his interest to Mr Philip Brooks, an American diplomat. The other half was sold to the Callerys.
Ms Brooks owns 50 per cent of the land-holding and the Callerys hold 25 per cent each of the remaining land at the centre of the legal action. Mr Jaunch inherited a property which his late brother Arne had owned jointly with a local man, Mr Muiris Clery.
The landowners took their action because of the "sterility" caused by the State to their development plans for their property over the past 13 years. They said they should be permitted to retain ownership of some property on the island.
Mr Justice Budd said in the High Court in February 1998 the Act was an extreme case of delimiting the island landowners' property rights. He said it involved discriminative treatments between two classes of citizens "based substantially on pedigree". He concluded there was discrimination against the landowners and that it was "invidious, unfair and offensive".
Mr Justice Barrington, giving the Supreme Court's unanimous decision yesterday, agreed with Mr Justice Budd's decision that the Act had created two categories of landowners. He said the Act introduced an unusual and dubious classification with ethnic and racial overtones. The court had no doubt but that the Callerys, Ms Brooks and Mr Jaunch were being treated unfairly as compared with persons who owned or occupied and resided on the island before 1953 or their descendants.
Legal costs for both sides in the 50-day High Court and two-day Supreme Court hearings total £1.5 million. Yesterday the Supreme Court ruled that the landowners should recover from the State 35 days of costs.